BackTo60 warning on final state pension ruling: ‘Full restitution is the ONLY solution’

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

State pension age has increased several times over the last few months as the government has plans to incrementally increase it in line with general trends with life expectancy. However, a blanket change was introduced in 2010 which affected a certain group of women specifically.

The state pension age began rising from 60 to 65 for women born in the 1950s to match men’s retirement ages.

This increase was brought in earlier than the government originally planned.

The government has detailed repeatedly that the women affected by this were warned and given plenty of notice but the BackTo60 campaign emerged to disagree with this claim.

Eventually, the government was taken to court on the issue but the case was ultimately unsuccessful.

The House of Commons Library detailed the following on the case: “On October 3 2019, the High Court gave judgment on a claim for judicial review brought by the BackTo60 campaign.

“The claimants’ grounds were that the mechanisms chosen to implement the increases in the pension age discriminated on grounds of age and/or sex.

“They also sought judicial review of the government’s “alleged failure to inform them of the changes.

“However, the court dismissed the claim on all grounds.”

DON’T MISS: 
Pension warning: Industry wide ‘ignorance’ costing savers billions [WARNING]
Pension: Grandparents turning to eBay to boost COVID income [INSIGHT]
Pension: DWP appeal court compensation ruling – ‘pitfalls’ explored [EXPERT]

Despite this, the BackTo60 campaign has been appealing the ruling ever since and they have seen victories in some areas.

For example, in mid-July lawyers representing the government attempted to have the judicial review into the issue declared unlawful.

Sir James Eadie QC, representing the DWP, argued that the review should not have gone ahead at all.

Despite the dismissal, Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, disputed this noting there were opportunities in the past where it could have been brought up but were not utilised.

The campaign has been ongoing in this manner for some time now but tomorrow, the final decision will be made on the case.

This final decision will be handed down from 10:30am and many will likely be very keen to see the verdict.

Ahead of tomorrow’s verdict Joanne Welch, the founder of BackTo60, provided the following comments: “We expect great things having won leave to appeal on all grounds at the Court of Appeal.

“9.8m men were facilitated to retire age 60 over a 24 year period each with 5 years free NICs: whilst 3.8m women were robbed and coerced back to work for up to 6 years, latterly amid a Pandemic.

“Full Restitution is the only solution.”

It should be noted that due to coronavirus, the appeal decision will be handed down remotely.

The court confirmed that the decision will be circulated to the parties involved by email, as they detailed: “A copy of the judgment in final form as handed down should be available on the Judiciary website (www.judiciary.uk) or BAILII shortly thereafter but can otherwise be obtained on request by email to the Judicial Office ([email protected]).”

Source: Read Full Article