OPPOSITION parties forced through a pensions law amendment yesterday to end direct discrimination against thousands of women born after April 1951.

A parliamentary debate on state pension inequality had strong participation by Labour and the SNP, while at one point only two female Tory MPs were seen in the Commons.

Many stood up to complain that their constituents had not been given enough notice that their retirement age had risen from 60 to 65.

Parliament’s youngest MP Mhairi Black, who represents Paisley and Renfrewshire South for the SNP, delivered a passionate plea for financial help for those affected.

“The government has said that the policy decision to increase women’s state pension age is designed to remove the inequality between men and women,” she said.

“That’s a strange definition of equality if I am being shafted and short-changed purely for the fact of when I am born and the fact that I am a woman.

“That’s not my definition of equality.”

In 2011, the coalition government sped up the process of increasing the retirement age, so that it will be set at 65 by November 2018 and 66 in October 2020.

National Pensioners Convention general secretary Dot Gibson told the Star that the affected women should be compensated.

“Having an equal retirement age for men and women is the right thing to do, but the last and current government has made a dog’s breakfast out of it,” she said.

Tory MP Julian Knight, however, seemed to think that working longer would offset the losses, saying: “What we need to do is encourage older people’s involvement in the workforce as well.

“One of the most encouraging things we’ve seen from this government is the fact that people are staying in work for longer.”