Some questions from Gransnetters for Mhairi:
1955 baby here who only realised five years ago that I was on a reduced stamp so my pension will be around £17 per week! This can t be adjusted by extra payments apparently. As the difference in payments is not huge, it would be nice to know what I was paying towards! I am lucky in that I have another pension but what happens to the women that don't? Surely there should be some form of making extra payments for the last ten years. Cambia
I would also like to thank Mhairi for having the courage and wisdom to make a stand to try and do something about this appalling inequality.
I am so angry at the way the Government is able to keep moving the goalposts. I have worked hard all my life and saved on the basis that I would retire at 60. And yet the goalposts have moved and moved and now I have to wait until I am 65. I do realise people are living longer and something needs to be done to reflect this but you cannot expect people to live a whole life according to one set of rules then have them changed at the last minute. We can't possibly make up the shortfall at this stage in our lives/jobs. And yet other friends get their pensions no problem.
We appreciate you speaking out for us and I would like to know if there are any other steps I can take - both for my own financial security and also to help you in what you are doing? NW950
But I struggled to get past the first point. "The Government did not write to any woman affected by the rise in pension ages for nearly 14 years after the law was passed in 1995."
How on earth can they get away with this? You can bet your bottom dollar that if it was men affected they never would have got away with it this long. sharky
I know that this was debated in the Commons for several hours last week and your motion was passed by 158 votes to zero. But the minister said that there will still be no change. This is ludicrous. Now what?
Thank you for fighting the fight. downthelane
But would like to raise another point about the continual increase of the retirement age which is that sometimes the work that you do makes it impossible to continue in a job even though you may wish to. As a nurse I have had to help move patients - often twice my body weight - for years and years and as a result now suffer from back problems which prevent me continuing in the role however much I might want to. So what am I supposed to do at 60 plus? Retrain? Even if I could afford it what's the point in spending a year training for a new career that will only last a couple of years? The government need to think about those of us who have done heavy work that cannot be sustained into later years. They also need to remember that unemployment is rife, particularly in the north where I live. So it is all very well telling me I need to work - and actually I would like to work - but where am I meant to find a job when I have spent the best part of 40 years doing something I can no longer do? yezle
My husband and I are both retired and spend a lot of our time helping out at local charities and organisations that do a huge amount of good in the community but would never survive without volunteers like us. Had I been born a year later we would not have been able to do all this and it made me think about the what ifs and how these changes are going to deprive so many organisations of the people who keep them going. Or as we are all meant to be living longer are the government assuming that we can do this sort of thing in our 70s and 80s instead? mrshm
Mhairi, I'm ashamed to say that when you were elected, I wondered how someone so young would cope as an MP. You have proved to be a force in UK politics, and a very honourable woman. Thank you so much for taking up the fight on behalf of us WASPI women. Could I ask what influenced you to make this one of your battles? Maggiemaybe