The Tories have delivered a ‘double whammy’ to women born in the 1950s by raising the state pension age from 60 to 66 with no transitional arrangements, while telling women to go to job centres they are now closing.
Guy Opperman, the Pensions Minister, asked the women effected by the pensions change to seek out apprenticeships to get older people into work.
Meanwhile, the UK government is closing 70 job centres across the UK, including ten in Scotland.
It is therefore no surprise the Minister was met with cries of ‘shame’ during a Westminster Hall debate yesterday.
This is callous attack on women nearing retirement age from the Tory government.
The WASPI women have already been treated appallingly by the Tories. Frankly, the comments from the Pensions Minister are nothing short of an insult while the government closes job centres across the country.
And just yesterday we found out the Tories plan to increase the state pension age even further – a policy that wasn’t in their manifesto of misery during the election – meaning 34 million people across Britain will have to work longer than under Labour’s plan.
Scottish Labour has long supported the WASPI women’s campaign and opposes the job centre closures. It’s clear that only Labour will protect pensioners as part of our plan to create a society that works for the many, not the few.
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