Liberal Democrat MPs are pressing the Government to perform yet another u-turn, this time over plans to raise the state pension age.
Lorely Burt (Lib Dem Solihull) and John Hemming (Lib Dem Yardley) have both signed a Commons motion criticising plans to raise the pension age for women to 66 from 2020.
Although there is widespread agreement that the age will need to be raised, the Government had previously planned to introduce the reform from 2026.
Bringing forward the reform by six years means around 2.6 million women currently in their 50s will have to wait at least a year longer than expected before they can receive their pension.
Lib Dem backbenchers are now demanding a rethink - even though the measure is included in the Pensions Bill which is already before Parliament.
A motion signed by Mr Hemming and Ms Burt warns: “It will be very difficult for many of these women to make appropriate financial arrangements in time to make up for the shortfall; and calls on the Government to rethink its retirement timetable in the Bill so that these women have a fairer chance to plan and save for their retirement.”
If the Government did back down it would be the latest in a series of u-turns by David Cameron’s government.
Mr Cameron has ordered Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, to ditch plans for a 50 per cent sentencing discount for criminals who plead guilty at an early stage in the judicial process, following claims that the Government was soft on crime.
And he has also ordered Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary to amend controversial NHS reforms.
The Prime Minister was forced to defend the pensions proposals in the House of Commons when he was challenged by another Lib Dem backbencher, Dorset MP Annette Brooke, who has also signed he motion.
She told him: “I would, as a woman who is not affected by the current pension proposals, like to ask you to personally review the particular proposal because of the injustice and discrimination to women.”
Mr Cameron replied: “I do understand the point you make. But in general, the reason for raising pension ages is two-fold - one is we are seeing a huge increase in life expectancy, but the second point is we want to make sure we can fund really good pension provision for the future.
“And if we don’t do that, we won’t be able to.”
He later added: “I think it is right to lift the pension age for men and women to a higher level, more rapidly than the last government decided.
"But the key thing is that 85 per cent of the women affected are going to lose one year or less in terms of their pension.”
He added that because the coalition had linked pensions to earnings, people who retired today would be £15,000 better off than they would have been under Labour’s policies.
