It is wrong, it is insulting, and it compounds the more fundamental insult that women who, by and large, have smaller pensions because they had lower earnings throughout their entire lifetime while bearing a burden for the rest of us have been told that they cannot access their pension. That is the real insult that we should be worried about.
My hon. Friend is right that it is completely insulting to suggest that proper notice was given, because the truth is that it was a botched job from start to finish. We know that because the current Conservative Pensions Minister in the House of Lords says so. She says quite clearly that
“until recently, many of these women were expecting to receive their state pension at age 60, since they were unaware of the changes made in 1995”.
The Government are damned out of their own mouths.