THE women pension campaigners from Lancaster and South Lakes WASPI have stepped up their efforts by canvassing the candidates for the Westmorland and Lonsdale seat in today's General Election.

The WASPI, which stands for Women Against State Pension Inequality, met with Conservative candidate Cllr James Airey, Labour candidate Phillip Black and Liberal Democrat candidate Tim Farron.

And to their delight, all three signed their WASPI pledge in which they agreed to support the campaign to press the Government to work towards an equitable settlement of the wrangle.

The group are continuing their campaign against what they describe as ‘pension injustice’ despite a recent landmark High Court ruling going against them.

In the case, two claimants had alleged that hikes in the state pension age, raising the age women could claim the state pension from 60 to 66, did not give women born in the 1950s enough time to prepare and constituted age and sex discrimination.

However, the High Court dismissed their case, with judges saying the changes equalised a “historic asymmetry between men and women.”

At the time, Mr Farron, then MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, described the ruling as “extremely sad news”.

And Carol Haigh, a member of South Lakes and Lancashire WASPI, a splinter group bearing the same logo as the original movement, said they had no intention of giving up their fight.

Mrs Haigh explained that at 58 years old, she discovered she would have to wait until she was nearly 66 to claim her pension, and would not receive it at 60 as she had expected to.

“Our complaints weren’t wanting to put our pensions back to 60 - we want compensation for what had happened to us," she said.

“We just want the women of the 1950s to get some form of compensation because of the maladministration by the Department of for Work and Pensions (DWP).”