AN Adpar woman is the first in Ceredigion to have her case regarding her state pension referred to the Parliamentary Ombudsman.

Ceredigion MP Ben Lake has referred the case of Pamela Judge, who has lost six years of her State Pension due to changes in legislation, to the authority. This has become necessary after the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) closed her case without finishing its investigation.

On November 30, a Judicial Review of the treatment of 1950s born women granted permission for a full High Court hearing. The thousands of women in the UK who had lodged formal complaints have now received letters telling them their cases have been closed because of the legal proceedings.

“This is an unacceptable way to treat these women,” said Ben Lake. “Some of them have paid full National Insurance Contributions for over 40 years, only now to be told at short notice that the pension they had reasonably expected to receive at 60 would be delayed by up to six years.

“It is adding insult to injury to disregard their complaints in this way, which is why I am keen that they are looked at by the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman.

“If the Government is of the view that it cannot process the complaints until the outcome of the court hearing, then it would be preferable that it suspends these complaints, rather than throwing them out completely. I shall be writing to the Minister and the Parliamentary Ombudsman to seek clarity on this matter.”

Pamela said: “It took the Government over 14 years to write to tell us of our new pension age. Yet it’s only taken them a week to send letters out saying our cases have been closed.

“It’s like being thrown on the scrap heap. The Ombudsman is going to have an awful lot of cases to look into.”

There are 5,000 women in Ceredigion affected by the changes to the State Pension Age, and 3.8m women in the UK as a whole.

Ceredigion Women Against State Pension Injustice (WASPI) can help women with their complaints, regardless of what the DWP has told them. You can contact WASPI by emailing waspiceredigion@gmail.com or by ringing Carys Lloyd in Ben Lake’s office tel. 01570 940333.

In 1995 the government introduced a gradual increase of the State Pension Age for women from 60 to 65 but did not write to tell them. Another change in 2011 accelerated the rise to 65 and increased it to 66 for both men and women by 2020.

Some women were written to in 2009 - 14 years after the first change - but letters were then stopped until 2012. Many women received no notice at all and those who did get letters, had very little time to prepare for such a major change to their pension status.