Government Response

The Government responded to this petition on Tuesday 15th October 2019

People are living longer. We needed to equalise and raise the State Pension age for men and women to secure the sustainability of the State Pensions system and fairness between generations and genders

State Pension age (SPa) reform has focused on maintaining the right balance between sustainability of State Pension and fairness between generations. People are living longer, for example, a girl born in 1951 was expected to live to 81.6 years and a boy to 77.0 years. By 2019, these figures had increased by over 10 years to 92.4 years for newly born girls and by over 12 years for boys to 89.7 years. Women retiring today can still expect to receive the State Pension for over 2 years longer than men. If SPa had not been equalised, women would spend on average over 40% of their adult life in receipt of State Pension.

The SPa review can be found here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/630065/state-pension-age-review-final-report.pdf

Any amendments that reverse the changes to SPa already established would result in significant public spending. Doing so would mean that people of working age, especially younger people, would bear a greater financial burden to support the rising costs of the pensions system, and would create inequality between men and women. The Government estimates that over the period 2010/11 to 2025/26, the total additional costs for reversing women’s SPa back to 60 and men’s SPa back to 65 would be around £206 billion, in 2018/19 prices. These costs would increase to around £215 billion when taking into account the costs of other pensioner benefits and savings made on working age benefits.

The Government has done a lot to improve pensions for everyone, particularly for women. Future female pensioners will benefit on average from a higher new State Pension payment, and from the expansion of Automatic Enrolment. Women who reached SPa in 2016 are estimated to receive more State Pension on average over their lifetime than women ever have before.

It has always been our view that the changes made to women’s SPa are lawful. The High Court has recently looked at SPa changes affecting 1950’s born women and concluded that there was no legal duty on the government to notify affected individuals when altering SPa.

The court recognised that successive governments consulted with a wide range of interested parties before the changes to SPa were introduced. The High Court also concluded that there was no discrimination on the grounds of gender or age and that the SPa rules that equalise men and women’s SPa correct historic discrimination against men.

The full judgment can be found here: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/r-on-the-application-of-julie-delve-and-karen-glynn-v-the-secretary-of-state-for-work-and-pensions/

Department of Work and Pensions