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You were right to highlight that one of the ways government policies are impacting women unfairly is in the increase of the state pension age (How the coalition's blind spot on equality is letting women down, 21 May). The pensions bill before parliament will see the rise to 65 for women's state pension age brought forward two years to 2018 and then increased to 66, with men's, by 2020. As a result, 500,000 women aged 56 and 57 will endure a delay in their state pension of over a year; 33,000 will face a delay of two years. These women are of a generation that has faced years of inequality in the workplace: the gender pay gap was nearly 30% at the start of their working lives and they have often had interrupted careers, and so less chance to build up a pension outside the state system. And the measures in the bill are a clear breach of the coalition agreement, which promised the increase in the state pension age "will not be sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women". With the bill awaiting its second reading in the Commons, this is the time for the Lib Dems to hold the Tories to the agreement they signed last year.
Rachel Reeves MP
Shadow pensions minister
