Councillors have given passionate backing to local women who were ready to retire at 60 only to be told they would have to work up for another six years.
SNP group leader Councillor, Julie Dettbarn, tabled a motion that calls on South Ayrshire Council to put pressure on the UK Government to use the upcoming budget as a means to ensure suitable compensation to the millions of women across the country.
The motion also called on similar action to be taken around the controversial scrapping of winter fuel payments for all pensioners.
Councillor Dettbarn told colleagues: “We’ve got a new government in place. They’ve got a budget coming up at the end of this month.
“This motion supports the recommendation of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on State Pension Inequality for Women. They were very clear in what they’re recommending.”
The change to the increase the age that women can receive the state pension was started in the mid 1990s, giving a decade and a half to put the change into practice.
However, as it began to take effect just over a decade ago, many women in their 50s who had believed they would still qualify for their pension at the age of 60, were given as little as a year’s notice that they would have to continue for another five years.
That increased to six years in the 2011 Pensions Act.
Cllr Dettbarn said: “This change, it’s been well recognised now, was not properly communicated to over 3.8 million women who were born in the 1950s until 2012.
“This gave some only one year’s notice of a six year increase to the anticipated retirement age.
“We know the figure for Central Ayrshire indicates that approximately 6,000 of the affected women work in the Troon, Prestwick and Kyle parts of South Ayrshire.
“We can deduce that at least similar numbers will be present in the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock constituency, which covers the remainder of South Ayrshire.”
She said that the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman found that the Department of Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration in its handling of the state pension.
Clrl Dettbarn continued: “There won’t be any family or extended family of anyone in this room who doesn’t have a woman who was born in the 1950s. Your mum, or your gran, or your auntie, or your cousin, or your sister, or your wife, then it’s your next-door neighbour, or it’s the woman that you work with.
“That’s how widespread this is.
“The all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women concluded that the impact of this maladministration has been as devastating as it is widespread.
“Sadly, research commissioned by the campaign group WASPI has found that by the end of 2022, over 220,000 women of the women born in the 1950s will have died waiting for justice since the WASPI campaign began in 2015.
“The Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman has recommended a level payout which falls between £1000 and roughly £3,000 to symbolise the significant and lasting impact on many of the women.
“However, given that the average individual loss is in the region of £50,000, this level of payout, of compensation, is woefully inadequate. This motion supports the position of the all-party parliamentary group in calling for level 6 compensation, which would result in a payout of upwards of £10,000.”
Labour Councillor Ian Cavana said that he had previously voted against his own party in backing the WASPI campaign when it was discussed by the council some years ago.
He added that he was also against the winter fuel payment being removed.
He said: “The Labour Government did a survey on it [compensation], and it’ll cost £3.5 billion.
“So what? This has been the biggest injustice in this Parliament, and no matter who’s sitting in Westminster.
“All of a sudden, women who had made up their mind they were retiring at 60 because they were getting a pension, had seen it jump to 65 and then 66.
“These women have been treated diabolically by everybody, and it doesn’t matter what political party you’re in. We are the fifth richest country in the world, but we can’t take care of our own.”
Girvan Independent Councillor, Alec Clark, said:”My wife would have been one of these lost women.
“This generation who had their dreams taken away from them, their retirement dreams, the dreams of being with their families, were all thrown up in the air.
“And some of these ladies were forced to work, even though sometimes their health was not good enough for them to be able to do so.”
Alba Councillor, Chris Cullen, welcomed the consensus, pointing to ‘changed times’ where all councillors agreed with the position, which had not been the case previously.
Provost Iain Campbell pointed out the difficulties that older people face in work.
He said: “When you plan all your life to retire at 60, and you find out that all of a sudden you have another seven years to do, it’s really not fair because age does take its toll on you.
“And the last seven years is a lot different from your first seven years at work.”
The motion was passed unanimously.