Prime Minister Theresa May has defended the increase to women’s state pension age, stating that it is important for equality to equalise men and women’s state pension age.

May was responding to a question put to her by SNP Westminster Leader Ian Blackford in Prime Minister's Questions, yesterday, 7 February. He referred to the celebrations this week of 100 years since some women were given the right to vote, which was about “democracy, equality and fairness for women”.

Blackford said: “Today in the United Kingdom, 3.8 million women are not receiving the pension to which they are entitled. A motion in this House last November, which received unanimous cross-party support—the vote was 288 to zero—called on the government in London to do the right thing. Will the Prime Minister do her bit for gender equality and end the injustice faced by 1950s women?”

In her response, however, May was adamant that the government had already done the right thing.

“As people are living longer, it is important that we equalise the pension age of men and women. We are doing that, and we are doing it faster. We have already acted to give more protection to the women involved. An extra £1bn has been put in to ensure that nobody will see their pension entitlement changed by more than 18 months," she said.

“That was a real response to the issue that was being addressed. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about equality, he has to recognise the importance of the equality of the state pension age between men and women,” she said.

Recently, Pensions Minister Guy Opperman also said that compensating the women affected would create more inequality between men and women. Speaking in the House of Commons in December, Opperman said that going as far as some campaigners wanted, by calling for full compensation for women affected by the 1995 and 2011 Pensions Acts, would cost the public £70bn.

Prior to that in October, Opperman reiterated to the House of Commons that “the new state pension is much more generous for many women who were historically worse off under the old system”.

Members of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign group, who attended the debate, stormed out of the House of Commons Chamber shouting “shame on you” as Opperman defended the changes.

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