Rosie Cooper MP met with Work and Pensions Minister, John Hutton to discuss Labour’s plans to make pensions fairer, particularly for women and carers.

Rosie Cooper MP said:

“At the moment only around a third of women retire with a full state pension. The government is determined to put this right by cutting the number of years needed to build up a full pension entitlement and introducing weekly credits that count towards your pension, if you are caring for children or the seriously disabled.”

“Under the changes almost half a million extra women currently aged between 45 and 55 will retire with a full basic state pension. Around a million more people - 90 per cent of them women - will build up entitlement to the State Second Pension. That is great news which will make a big difference to people in West Lancashire coming up to retirement”.

Work and Pensions Minister, John Hutton said:

“In order to ensure the reforms are affordable and sustainable, we plan to raise the State Pension Age gradually to 68 by 2046. This means that Parliament will be asked to legislate for the next forty years. It is a big step but is absolutely the right way to meet the demographic challenge so that we do not burden our children and grandchildren with the cost of a population spending longer and longer in retirement.”

Rosie Cooper MP said:

“Quite simply, this is the biggest change to our pensions system since Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour Government implemented the Beveridge reforms.”