Women lose state retirement age appeal against government

Two women affected by controversial changes in the state retirement age have lost their challenge before the Court of Appeals.

Julie Delve, 62, and Karen Glynn, 63, backed by the BackTo60 campaign group, challenged the changes after losing a Superior Court fight to the Department of Work and Pensions last year.

On Tuesday, the higher judges unanimously dismissed that appeal.

They said that introducing the same state retirement age for men and women did not amount to illegal discrimination.

The campaign groups associated with the court case represent nearly four million women who were affected by the government’s decision to raise the state retirement age from 60 to 66.

They say their fight is not over and they will take their case to the Supreme Court.

Deprivation

The two women were last in court last June, where they said in a court review that when they had not received their state pension at age 60, their lives had been disproportionately affected.

They argued that the way the government had introduced the increase in the retirement age was discriminatory. Some women thought they would retire at age 60, but found they had to wait up to more than five years. This caused them financial difficulties.

Those affected were born in the decade after April 6, 1950, but activists say those born after April 6, 1953 were particularly disadvantaged and have been the focus of much of the movement.

Because the workplace was less egalitarian for many of this generation, they argue that they were taking time out of their careers to raise children, paid less than men, and couldn’t save as much on occupational pensions, so the change It has hit them more.

The higher magistrates said: “Despite the sympathy that we, as members of the Divisional Court [High Court], sympathetic to the appellants and other women in their position, we are satisfied that this is not a case in which the court can interfere with decisions made through the parliamentary process. “

They said that “in light of the ample evidence” presented by the government, they agreed with the Superior Court’s appreciation that “it is impossible to say that the government’s decision to find the balance where it did between the need to make the state pension available on a sustainable basis and the recognition of the difficulties that could result for those affected by the changes is manifestly unfounded.