Diolch, Llywydd. The change to state pension age, announced in 1993, followed equality legislation and various cases in the European courts. Changes in life expectancy were also being considered. Equalisation was initially brought about by the Pensions Act in 1995, when an EU directive prompted the UK Government to equalise retirement age for men and women—then 65 and 60 respectively. The UK Government chose to level it at 65, with staged increases in women’s state pension age between 2010 and 2020.

Following the 1995 Act, actual and projected pensioner population growth continued faster than anticipated, due to increasing longevity. The then Labour Government, therefore, decided that a state pension age fixed at 65 was not affordable or sustainable, and introduced the Pensions Act 2007, increasing the state pension age to 68 in stages between 2024 and 2046.

The coalition Government set out further changes in the Pensions Act 2011, which accelerated the equalisation of women’s state pension age and brought forward the increase in equalised state pension age to 66 by 2020. However, this included a concession so that no woman would see an increase to her state pension age of more than 18 months, relative to the 1995 Act timetable, at a cost to the Exchequer of £1.1 billion. 

The Pensions Act 2014—