UK Rules Out Compensation for 1950s Pension Delay Women

The UK government has ruled out compensation for thousands of women born in the 1950s who were affected by delays in communicating changes to the state pension age, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden announced in the House of Commons on Thursday.

McFadden reiterated an apology for the Department for Work and Pensions' failure to send individual notification letters earlier about the pension age rising from 60 to 65, a change enacted under the 1995 Pensions Act and accelerated in 2011 to equalize it with men at 66. "We accept that individual letters about changes to the state pension age could have been sent earlier," he said. "For this, I want to repeat the apology that former work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall gave on behalf of the government. And I am sorry that those letters were not sent sooner."

The decision follows a review prompted by court proceedings that uncovered a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation. That assessment had led officials to halt automatic pension forecast letters, a factor not fully considered in the government's initial rejection of compensation in December 2024. Despite the review, announced in November, McFadden concluded that...