Editor

Lorraine Thompson gives a very good description of how many women have been adversely affected by pension age equalisation (Cambrian News, 7 May), and their predicament is a good example of Government disingenuity.

In 1940, the pension age for men and women was 65. However, many husbands were older than their largely nonworking housewives, and upon his retirement only the older, husband’s pension supported the family until his wife was eventually 65. The government therefore recognised that age disparity and reduced women’s pension age to 60, to provide more adequate support. It was also recognised that the older husband was likely to die before his wife, who would then be thrown into the workforce in her later life, with minimal employment skills.

Seventy-nine years later, June 2019, in the High Court of Justice, James Eadie QC acting for the Department of Work and Pensions, argued that pension equalisation was necessary “to remove the direct discrimination (against men!) on the face of that legislation (1940)”.

I am not a lawyer, but simple common sense tells me that the 1940 legislation was designed to assist the husband to support his wife, not discriminate against him, and it is sheer disingenuity to distort the cultural intention of that legislation.

Roger Louvet, Porthmadog

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