eazybee
I agree; the information was there, and I cannot support a demand for payment of extra pension to which people are not entitled.
But how does one become 'entitled' to a pension? Many people get them after hardly paying in at all - are they 'entitled'?
I don't think it is reasonable to take money compulsorily from those who work, on the understanding that they will get a pension at 60, then change the rules when they are 45 or whatever. Not everyone is in a position to make up the difference, and back then there were fewer ways to do so.
I knew of the changes, but was not sent a letter, email or any sort of communication (HMRC confirmed this when I sent a FOI request to ask them). I can't remember how I found out, but I fully accept that many people would not have known. For one thing I don't think the information was 'out there' in the way that information is now, and for another, a lot of people trusted the government to do the right thing, and didn't listen to or read media about financial matters.
Many still don't - on my local FB page there were lots of complaints from people saying they had been denied a vote in the recent elections. They hadn't been, of course - there were no elections in our area, as we had ours last year. Similarly, there was a TV news item last night about a possible change of PM, and a woman trotted out media snippets about Starmer ('flip flop', 'rabbit in the headlights' etc etc) then said she'd never heard of Wes Streeting, but had heard of Westlife. Not everyone is 'tuned in', and governments know this. Communication channels need to take account of different levels of engagement, and they know that, too, but they chose to avoid controversy by keeping 'notifications' to channels where many people would not come across them.
