On the go: The High Court has ruled against the BackTo60 campaign group, who were seeking the restitution of their state pensions backdated to age 60.
The BackTo60 campaign argued that women born in the 1950s affected by the 1995 and 2011 Pensions Act changes were unfairly treated by increases to the state pension age to 66 between 2010 and 2020. The campaigners also said that the changes were not adequately communicated.
In the judgment, Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice Whipple said: “We are saddened by the stories we read in the evidence lodged by the claimants. But our role as judges in this case is limited. There is no basis for concluding that the policy choices reflected in this legislation were not open to government.”
They concluded that “once established that the motivations for change are macroeconomic and political, the claimants’ arguments that the government could and should have effected its changes in a different and less-intrusive way become unsustainable”.
Commenting on the judgment, Tom Selby, senior analyst at AJ Bell, said: “This ruling will come as a bitter blow to the millions of women who had been hoping the courts would roll back the tide on state pension age increases.”
He added: “The financial impact of having to wait up to six more years to receive the state pension is significant, and for many just scraping by has pushed them into serious financial hardship.”
Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, said that in an era where private pensions now offer the flexibility to take as much or as little out from as early as 55, “there would be merit in offering not just affected women but everyone regardless of gender the option to take their state pension a few years early, subject to it being set at a reduced level to reflect it being paid for longer”.
While lots of people would argue that this does not go far enough to address the hardship a generation of women are facing, it would at least offer more options to choose from, according to Mr Cameron.
Tom McPhail, head of policy at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that the government will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief at the ruling, because any financial remedy would have cost them billions of pounds to deliver.
“Given most of the women involved are now already past their revised state pension age, it is hard to see where the campaign will go from here,” he said.
“It is axiomatic that retirement ages have to rise. It is simply not possible to offset the combination of longer life expectancy, stagnant wages and low interest rates, without working longer and retiring for less time.”
Mr McPhail added: “The critical learning point from this court judgement is people need to prepare for retirement well in advance. It was this disconnect between these women’s expectations and their impending reality check of a later state pension that has resulted in the lawyers getting involved.”
