The government has punished women born in the 1950s for too long – we need to reduce the state pension age

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

I was born in 1955, just three and a half years after my sister. She received her state pension at the age of 61, but mine has been deferred twice, until the age of 66. In fact anyone born after October 1954 will now have a state pension age (SPA) of 66 or more.

The detractors from the Backto60 and Waspi campaigns say that “ignorance is not an excuse”, but I was genuinely not aware of the 1995 Pension Act or the fact that it had increased my SPA. At the age of 40 in 1995, I was still 20 years away from my expected pension date, so not surprisingly “retirement” was probably the last thing on my mind.

In my opinion, anything as significant as the first change to SPA in 70 years should, without doubt, have warranted a personal letter to those affected, way back in 1995 when it happened and not leave it to chance that us 1950s ladies, who are affected, would find out. They say information was in the Financial Times but what normal mother of three would be reading that at the breakfast table? Benefit agencies apparently had a few leaflets, but these weren’t sent out to individuals affected, so if you had no contact with them, how were we supposed to know?

In 2006 I received an Automatic State Pension Forecast (ASPF) that estimated the amount of state pension I would receive, but this did NOT advise me of the new age or date, so nothing alerted me to the fact that anything had changed.

We also now know that the government did not advise anyone by letter until 2009, and then apparently only to those born in the years 1950-53. Why then? And why just select few birth years? Nobody seems to want to answer this important question. The latter 1950s-born women are affected far more.

I did not receive ANY letter, not even the one they say was sent to me (after the 2011 Pension Act) in February 2012. This would have given me just three years’ notice of a six-year hike to my SPA, but I only found out because I requested an ASPF for myself in early 2013, the same year that my husband was due to retire at 65. I expected mine at 60 in February 2015.

This was the first indication that I was affected by both the 1995 and 2011 increases, and would now have to wait until February 2021, when I reached my 66th birthday.

We have to rely mainly on my husbands pension to get by from month to month. Having my own state pension would make all the difference and also give me back my independence. We are just above the limit for benefit help, so instead, we are having to use the small amount of savings we have, those savings that we were relying on to see us through our final years. I will lose out on over £40,000 and will never have the chance to recoup this lost income.

To target one generation, especially as many 1950s women like myself didn’t have equality in the workplace or the opportunities to be high flyers, is wrong. Many had to look after children or parents, as the childcare facilities and care weren’t available like they are now. Instead, these same women are going to food banks to survive and even losing the homes that they have worked their entire lives for.

As if that wasn’t enough, 1950s women have also been hit by the increase in the number of national insurance contribution years now required from 2016, and since July this year, the pension credit rules have also changed so that a couple cannot now claim until they both reach the SPA.

Is there anything else the government can throw at us? 1950s women played by the book. We did everything right expecting our pensions to be paid just like the seven generations before us, yet our only crime, it seems, was to be born in the 1950s.

Rosina Pain-Tolin
Langport, Somerset

No appetite for a centrist party

Although your Sunday front page headline and the headline of the relevant article both state that the electorate is “ready to vote” for a new centrist party, this is not what the survey found, is it? In fact, we learned that BMG asked some 1,500 people whether they “were ready to think about voting for a new party”, with 43 per cent saying they would “consider” voting for a new centre-ground party. I expect many, many people have “considered” voting for the present centre ground party, the Lib Dems, but have decided against it.

We are also told that a third of people who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the last general election would “support Labour splitting up as a party”. This could be because they are absolutely sickened by the relentless, destructive and very personal attacks upon the leadership by certain vitriolic people in the party, and this third may feel that Labour would be well rid of them if that’s the way they behave.

Wishful thinking by journalists is not the same thing as facts.

Penny Little
Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

We should avoid another referendum

I regularly hear from many die-hard Remainers that holding the EU referendum was wrong for many reasons. According to them, it was too complex to be laid out in the form of a simple “Remain-Leave” question. In addition to that, the issues being discussed were too difficult for the “ordinary” person to comprehend.

Well, if this was the case, why are many of these very same people calling for a second referendum, where trying to understand the finite details of the deal will be even more complicated and the question will still have to be formatted in a very similar way? It seems to me that hypocrisy is surfacing. Holding a second referendum is not about doing what is in the country’s interest but more about what is in the interests of those who did not get what they wanted the first time asking.

We should want to avoid another referendum which could be potentially as divisive as the first, and lead to popular disillusionment for generations to come in areas that voted strongly to leave. In 1975, the majority voted to join the common market and this was acted upon. In 2016, the majority chose to leave the EU. For the sake of restoring faith in our democracy, this should be carried out too.

Lewis Chinchen
Sheffield

A matter of human rights

I can only assume that the City of London Corporation has a very short memory, or they are totally unaware of political machinations outside of the UK.

If this is not the case, then why on Earth are they honouring the wife of Turkish president Recep Erdogan? Yes, the one that does not understand human rights.

This travesty is up there in the premier division of travesties along with Aung San Suu Kyi receiving the Nobel prize – bewilderingly still not revoked – and remember last year when some “totally out-of-touch” individual suggested Robert Mugabe as goodwill ambassador for the World Health Organisation?

It is hardly surprising that the man on the street thinks that the elite are out of touch and that so-called awards are just one big gravy train. Disgraceful.

Robert Boston
Kingshill, Kent

Knickerbocker Glory

In reference to this article about Vince Cable’s Brexit warning, it seems that the UK under the heat of Brexit is akin to a Fortnum & Mason knickerbocker glory ice cream melting in the heat of the sun! Where is the real substance of a no-deal economy? Sweet perhaps for some, but too fluid for long term structural resilience.

Amali De Silva-Mitchell
Windsor, Berkshire

Abortion clinic buffer zones

I am so disappointed that Sajid Javid has decided not to put in place buffer zones around abortion clinics. Despite J Longstaff’s view (letters) that I should therefore be ashamed of myself, I most certainly am not. I was surprised to read in his letter that my “valid and reasonable” view that all women who take the very personal, very difficult decision to have an abortion should be allowed respect, space, peace and privacy could be considered to constitute “intolerance”. I was even more surprised to read that I may, on the basis of this view, be both “liberal and bigoted”. I’ll happily admit to being liberal. I’ll work on being less bigoted.

Beryl Wall
London, W4