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Campaigners voice concerns over pension reforms
September 27, 2011
Age UK has called for the government to clarify how it will protect women in their late 50s during the transition to a higher state pension age.
The government's proposed pension changes will particularly affect women in their late 50s, campaigners have warned.
Hundreds of thousands of women will have to wait an extra two years before receiving their state pension, if the pensions bill becomes law as expected.
The bill is due to receive its final reading in parliament on October 18th and intends to raise the state pension age for women to 65 by 2018 and to 66 by April 2020.
Michelle Mitchell, charity director at Age UK, said that the changes will affect a group of women who have already had their state pension age raised.
"There is a lot of talk of concessions at the moment, but if this is true we want some clarity as to what these changes will actually be," she said.
"This is the last chance for the government to do the right thing by the thousands of hard-working women up and down the country who are being penalised and who feel they have been badly let down."
Pensions minister Steve Webb recently said that the government planned to soften the blow for women in their 50s.
Speaking at the Liberal Democrat conference, he insisted that the government "will do all that we can do to ease that transition for the particular group of women most affected by the change".
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