Women marched on Westminster last week to complain about the Government moving their pension goalposts.  They had a massively important point to make.  The Coalition's intention to raise the state pension age to 66 by 2020 will affect five million people and simply does not give them enough time to plan.  It also risks plunging thousands of women into poverty, according to the charity Age UK, which arranged the demonstration at Parliament.  About 2.6 million women will have to wait at least a year longer for their state pension because of the change and the plan to speed up the rate at which their state pension age is increased to 65 years, in line with men's.

Among these, there are 330,000 women who will have to wait an extra 18 months to two years before they can start drawing the benefit.

Those forced to wait two years will lose an average of £10,000 of their state pension income. 

Age UK warned that many of the women affected by the changes are either carers or in poor health, which means working for longer is not an option for them. 

If these plans become law, they will leave women with little time to prepare for their retirement.*