Friday, 29 Mar 2024

Theresa May set for £22,000 bonus if Jeremy Corbyn and Labour win the General Election

Under Labour’s billion pound pledge Theresa May would be entitled to a £21,910 compensation. The former Prime Minister falls into a Labour compensation category for women who have, in Jeremy Corbyn’s words, “lost a lot of money”. This bonus would be seen under Labour’s £58 billion plan to reimburse more than three mullion women left out of pocket by rises in the state pension age.

Under the plans 3.7 million women born between 1950 and 1960 who thought they would retire at 60 but have seen the state pension age rise will be paid £100 for each week of pension income lost.

Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, criticised the plan to compensate Waspi women, Women Against State Pension Inequality, because, he said, it would hand money to people who are already “quite well off”.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said: “We owe a moral debt to these women.

“They were misled.

“They’ve lost a lot of money.”

Mrs May was born on October 1 1956, and so she would be entitled to £21,910.

Referring to the scheme Boris Johnson told Today on BBC Radio 4: “I think there are two interesting things about that: one is the sheer scale of it and, of course, it immediately breaks the promises they made in their manifesto just last week only to borrow to invest.

“So, they would need even more than £80 billion tax rises if they wanted to cover that.

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“Whilst some of these Waspi women really have suffered hardship as a result of no realising that this pension age increase is happening, although it was announced back in the early 1990s, many of them are actually quite well off.”

Under the plans 3.7 million women born between 1950 and 1960 who thought they would retire at 60, but have seen the state pension age rise will be paid £100 for each week of pension income.

Campaigners representing Waspi women lost a High Court case for compensation in October.

Waspi women argue that they were not given enough time to prepare.

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Those expecting to retire a 60 were told they would have to wait longer when changes to the pension age were accelerated in 2010.

In 2018 it rose to 65.

Referring to the scheme, Labour’s Angela Rayner told BBC News: “The government failed the women who were born in the 1950s.

“They stole their pension.”

The maximum compensation would be £31,300, with an average payment of £15,380.

There are two parts of the proposed compensation, one for the changes made in 1995, when it was decided that the state pension age for women should increase from 60 to 65, and one for the changes in 2011 when the increase to 65 was accelerated and an increase to 66 was scheduled.

Those born between 6 April 1955 and 6 April 1960 would receive smaller amounts.

Labour’s John Healey told BBC News: “This is not normal government spending, it’s not a regular spending commitment, that’s why it wasn’t costed as part of our grey book exercise.”

The grey book is the document Labour released alongside the manifesto that has costings for all day-to-day spending.

He added: “Just as government always has a contingency fund or a system of funding, one-off spending, which can’t be built and shouldn’t be built into regular budgets.”

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