Women affected by controversial changes to the state pension age have lost their landmark High Court fight against the Government.
Nearly four million women born in the 1950s have been affected by the changes, introduced by successive governments in an attempt to ensure “pension age equalisation”, which have raised the state pension age from 60 to 66.
Two claimants – Julie Delve, 61, and Karen Glynn, 63 – took the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court, arguing that raising their pension age “unlawfully discriminated against them on the grounds of age, sex, and age and sex combined”.
The pair, supported by campaign group Backto60, also claimed they were not given adequate notice in order to be able to adjust to the changes.
READ MORE: Scotland set to be first in UK to ban smacking
But, giving judgment in London on Thursday, Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice Whipple dismissed the claim.
In a summary of the court’s decision, the judges said: “There was no direct discrimination on grounds of sex, because this legislation does not treat women less favourably than men in law.
“Rather it equalises a historic asymmetry between men and women and thereby corrects historic direct discrimination against men.”
The court also rejected the claimants’ argument that the policy was discriminatory based on age, adding that even if it was “it could be justified on the facts”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel