CITY councillors have thrown their support behind the WASPI campaign and its call for those affected to get compensation.

Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaigns against changes to the state pension age imposed on women born in the 1950s.

The state pension age for women was increased from 60 to 65 in 1995, and upped again to 66 in 2011.

But the changes were not properly communicated until 2012.

The official WASPI campaign and a group of MPs are calling for £10,000 in compensation to be paid to those affected - and for the Department for Work and Pensions to issue a formal apology.

Following a motion introduced by Lib Dem councillor Sarah Murray at last week’s full council meeting, Worcester City Council has backed those calls.

Cllr Murray said some women were given only a year’s notice of a six-year increase in their anticipated retirement age.

“More said they never received a communication at all,” she said.

“5,300 women in Worcester are affected and this regularly comes up on the doorstep. We have sadly lost 290,000 WASPI women since the campaign began. We lose another every 13 minutes.”

Council leader Lynn Denham said: “I am a WASPI woman and with a birthday in April I was just the wrong side of the relevant tax year.

“I am very fortunate to be in receipt of an NHS pension so waiting for my old age pension was annoying but not financially challenging. 

“Changes to pension age is just one of the injustices visited against working women.”

Cllr Alex Mace said: “Women who had children before 1978 would have received Family Allowance rather than Child Benefit, which didn’t credit them with a year’s National Insurance contributions.

“For such women, this would have exacerbated the problem as not only would they have had to wait longer for their pension, they may have received a lower amount.

“It is right that the WASPI women are compensated.”

Cllr Jessie Jagger said: “This issue is not caused by a single government but rather a combination of years of successive governments where too often, issues that primarily affect women have fallen through the cracks.”