CRAVEN councillors have joined calls for millions of women across the county to be compensated for ‘unfair’ changes to the implementation of the state pension which has left many out of pocket.

A motion to the annual meeting of Craven District Council calling on Government to ‘reconsider transitional arrangements’ for women born in the 1950s was unanimously supported, with two members speaking of how they had been caught up in the changes and had lost money as a result.

Cllr Chris Rose said she was one of the thousands of women in Yorkshire whose state pension had been delayed by up to six years.

She was fortunate to have a work pension, but not all women were the same, some had elderly parents to care for and found themselves now having to continue to work.

“I do feel there has been an injustice and I strongly urge councillors to support this motion There will be women in your wards who this affects and who will be in a very worrying situation,” she said.

Cllr Linda Brockbank, said she too was one of the women whose pension had been affected, while Cllr Robert Heseltine said the women were being treated like ‘second class citizens’.

Cllr Andy Solloway, in proposing the motion, said it was a matter of public record that in 1995, the Government did not individually contact those affected, but instead put notices in selected publications.

The 1995 State Pension Act, equalised the state pension age for men and women, so increasing women’s state pension age from 60 to 65. The 2011 Coalition Government then increased the state pension age further to 66.

“In 2015 Women Against State Pension Injustice (WASPI) was founded to campaign against the unfair way that these changes were publicised and implemented,” said Cllr Solloway.

“WASPI consider that the Department for Work and Pensions failure to properly inform them of changes to the state pension age, in a timely manner, constitutes maladministration and started a campaign to raise awareness and begin a complaints procedure.”

Cllr Solloway said his motion would mean the council making representations to Government to reconsider transitional arrangements for women born on or after April 6, 1951, so that they did not live in hardship due to pension changes they were not told about until it was too late do make alternative arrangements.

He said almost 160 councils across the country, including North Yorkshire County Council, had written to the Government calling for a rethink.

“Many of these WASPI women will be your constituents, many of them are residents of the ward I represent,” said Cllr Solloway.

“What links them all is that they were all born in the 1950s, worked and contributed to the UK economy, paid into National Insurance, yet were given little or no notice that the state pension age had increased by up to six years, and as such many have been left without pensions, incomes and with retirement plans in tatters.”