Southport Councillor Pat Keith, who has championed women’s pension rights, has welcomed the government announcement that around 200,000 women could be in line for big pay-outs.
The Department for Work and Pensions revealed that payments averaging £13,500 could be made to top up underpayments of state pension spanning two decades. The errors focus on automatic cash increases for certain married women, widows and over-80s dating back to 1992 with “enhanced” pensions.
The DWP estimates the bill for tackling the shortfalls to be about £2.7bn.
Councillor Keith, Lib Dem representative for Cambridge Ward, said: Having drawn attention to pension underpayments to women in the past I’m delighted at this announcement from the government.
“Pension rights can be very complicated and huge number of these women would have been totally unaware that they are entitled to these payments. So this is great news for them, especially in these challenging times.”
The underpayment relates to the “old” state pension system – affecting those who reached pension age before 6 April 2016 – which had special provisions for married women.
Under these old rules, married women who had a poor pension in their own right could claim a 60% basic state pension based on their husband’s record of contributions. But some of these pensions were not automatically increased when they should have been.
A review will now take place to assess hundreds of thousands of cases, which could take many months to complete. It will include cases where the underpaid retiree has since passed away.
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