Ian Blackford MP has been involved in the campaign since his election in 2015.
Ian Blackford MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond MP, urging him to finally take action and support a large group of women who have been adversely athected by the acceleration in the increase of the state pension age.
The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign, run by a group of women born in the 1950s, has been arguing for some time that the Pension Acts, passed by Parliament in 1995 and 2011, accelerated the rise in state pension age from 60 to 65 at too quick a pace, and that they received no notice to prepare for these changes. MPs across the UK have raised concerns about the extremely dificult financial circumstances that this has put some women in. However, Mr Hammond made no provisions for WASPI women in his Budget speech on Monday, prompting a small protest from a group of campaigners in the public gallery – which was met with applause by opposition MPs. Recent research from the House of Commons shows there had been an increase of 210 per cent in women in Ross, Skye and Lochaber claiming Employment Support Allowance and a 50 per cent increase when related to Jobseekers Allowance or Universal Credit Claims. the research concluded that, ‘pension age changes are likely to have played some part in this increase’.