Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said he is willing to look at proposals to ease the financial burden on women in the fifties who will be hardest hit by the government’s moves to raise the retirement age.
His comments follow a vote in the House of Commons yesterday where MPs voted for plans to equalise the state pension age for both men and women at 65 in 2018 and to raise the age to 66 by 2020.
Mr Duncan Smith said that the government was committed to the retirement proposals and that other measures should not cost extra money but added that officials in the ministry were looking at measures aimed at preventing women in their fifties having their retirement plans disrupted by the change. He said: “I am quite happy to look at transitional arrangements. I don’t rule out discussion.”
