HELENSBURGH’S MP says the Department for Work and Pensions must act with the “utmost urgency” to rectify mistakes that led to 3.8 million women across the UK being kept in the dark over changes to their state pension age.

Brendan O’Hara made the plea after meeting members of the Argyll and the Isles branch of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign.

Around 6,700 women in Argyll and Bute who were born in the 1950s have been affected by the DWP’s action – or lack of it – which led to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) issuing a ruling last month that the DWP’s failures amounted to “maladministration”.

The PHSO found the DWP failed to take adequate account of the need for individually tailored communication with the women affected – many of whom took early retirement without realising they wouldn’t be able to start drawing their state pension until several years later than planned.

PHSO chief executive Amanda Amroliwala also said their investigation found the DWP “failed to act quickly enough once it knew a significant proportion of women were not aware of the changes to their state pension age”, and that it “should have written to the women affected at least 28 months earlier than it did”.

In a letter to the Secretary of State for DWP, Therese Coffey, Brendan O’Hara MP said: “These failings have had a huge impact on the lives of so many women in my constituency, bringing untold worry and stress for them and their families over their financial future.

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“It is therefore vital that you and your department address the findings outlined in the PHSO’s report to ensure justice is secured for all the women impacted by these changes.”

Helensburgh resident Ann Greer, the Argyll and Isles WASPI organiser, said: “1950s-born women in Argyll and Bute have been campaigning about state pension age changes since 2015.

“Some of us met Brendan at the first WASPI demonstration at Westminster in 2016, and others at the even bigger one in 2017, and we appreciate his continued support.

“WASPI is not opposed to state pension age equalisation. Our issue is with the way this was done.

“The PHSO has now proved that maladministration has occurred. We await the next stages in the PHSO’s investigation and hope that they advise the UK Government to ‘put things right’.”

A DWP spokesman said: “Both the High Court and Court of Appeal have supported the actions of the DWP, under successive governments dating back to 1995, and the Supreme Court refused the claimants permission to appeal.

“In a move towards gender equality, it was decided more than 25 years ago to make the state pension age the same for men and women.”