BBC

‘Don’t hesitate’

A MAJOR update has been issued after tens of thousands of married female retirees were underpaid the state pension due to a government error.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman confirmed this week that it will launch a full investigation into the issue.

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Failings in the old state pension system left potentially more than 100,000 married women without the payments they were due.

These women have been contacted and informed that a “detailed investigation” has begun into this group of complaints.

If successful, the Government could be forced to hand out hundreds of millions of pounds in state pension arrears to all of the women who missed out.

This could include thousands of women who died without ever being paid the correct pension.

Former Pensions Minister Sir Steve Webb criticised the previous system, calling it “archaic and sexist”.

“This is a major milestone in a long-running campaign for justice for thousands of married women,” he said.

“The fact that they did not know this was needed indicates a system which let them down and has cost them in many cases thousands of pounds through no fault of their own.”

These women did not ignore official correspondence and would clearly have made a claim had they realised it was needed one their husband retired, he added. 

Sir Steve estimates that some of these women will have lost out by £10,000 or more in the period since their husband retired.

How did the error happen?

Prior to a rule change in March 2008 married women could claim the state pension at age 60.

This was initially awarded purely based on their own National Insurance record, which showed how many years they had made contributions.

If they had spent time at home raising a family or had other gaps in their employment history then their state pension could be very low.

For many, this could be as little as 25% of the full basic pension.

But when their husband claimed his state pension married women could get an increase in the amount they would receive.

If their husband had made enough contributions then the amount of state pension they would receive could increase to as much as 60% of the full basic pension.

But this uplift only happened if they made a further state pension application once their husband retired.

Tens of thousands of married women assumed that because they had already applied for the state pension they would be paid the correct amount.

Those who did not make a second claim would remain on the low pension indefinitely.

If they found out about the potential uplift later they could only backdate their claim by one year, leaving them thousands of pounds out of pocket.

In cases seen by Sir Steve Webb some women potentially missed out on more than a decade of increased pension payments.

More shockingly still, many women were only notified of what they needed to do to claim if their husband ticked a box on his state pension pack.

Doing so would mean that two state pension claims forms were sent to him, one of which was to be given to his wife.

Failure of the husband to tick the box or to pass on the form to his wife would mean that she missed out.

Meanwhile, she could also be unfairly penalised if the DWP only sent one form rather than two.

When did the rule change?

The system was changed in March 2008 so that married women received a state pension uplift automatically without needing to make a further claim.

But women who had made a claim before 2008 did not benefit from the rule change.

During the investigation, the Ombudsman will ask the Department for Work and Pensions for all of the information available to married women when the letters were sent.

It will then share its preliminary findings with the DWP and those making a claim before it reaches a final recommendation.

What can I do about it?

You can contact the DWP directly and query whether you have been affected.

Another option is to use an online tool or advice site to see whether they can help.

An online tool launched by Sir Steve Webb on behalf of actuarial firm LCP can help married women check if they might be affected.

You can then contact the pension service to get your state pension entitlement reviewed.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

THIS is the shocking moment a World War II bomb exploded on an airport runway – bringing flights to a screeching halt.

An airport in regional Japan shut on Wednesday after an bomb buried under Miyazaki Airport unexpectedly blasted a hole in the runway.

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Footage recorded by a nearby aviation school showed the blast spewing pieces of tarmac into the air.

The explosion left a crater about 23ft wide and 3ft deep on the runway, with more than 80 flights cancelled.

No aircrafts were nearby when the bomb exploded, according to Land and Transport ministry officials. No causalities were reported.

A bomb disposal team from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces confirmed a 500lb US bomb had been the source of the blast after they had been called to the site.

A transport minister said they could not confirm when the bomb was dropped, local media reported it was likely during World War Two.

Chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said: “There is no threat of a second explosion, and police and firefighters are currently examining the scene.

He added the airport aimed to reopen on Thursday.

Miyazaki Airport was built in 1943 as a former Imperial Japanese Navy flight training field from which some kamikaze pilots took off on suicide attack missions.

Multiple unexploded bombs have previously been found at Miyazaki airport, a transport ministry official said.

More than 79 years since the end of the war, unexploded bombs from the intense airstrikes are still found across Japan.

Meanwhile, the tyres of a Ryanair flight exploded during landing, leaving the jet and passengers stuck on the runway.

Departing and arriving flights were suspended at Bergamo Orio al Serio airport, near Milan, Italy, following the horror scare.

It is understood the flight was coming from Barcelona when its tyres popped, L’Eco Di Bergamo reports.

The reason behind the accident is not yet known.

No injuries have been reported as passengers disembarked the aircraft via mobile stairs on the runway.

Two emergency vehicles from the Bergamo headquarters and five from the airport responded right away.

It comes after a Ryanair flight to Ibiza had to be diverted after violence broke out when a drunken Brit downed neat vodka then assaulted cabin crew and other passengers.

The plane carrying holidaymakers from Manchester landed in Toulouse, where police hauled the sozzled traveller and his ex-girlfriend off the plane.

Video of the attack showed the boozed-up travellers shouting and swearing at French cops, before assaulting a fellow holidaymaker as he was being escorted off the flight.

Passengers say trouble broke out after the man booked himself onto the plane after learning his ex-girlfriend and her brother were going to be on the same flight.

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For several years, Masato Kanda hardly slept.

“Three hours a night is an exaggeration,” he laughs as he speaks to the BBC from Tokyo.

“I slept for three hours consecutively before being woken up but I then went back to bed, so if you add them up, I got a bit more.”

So why was this 59 year-old bureaucrat’s schedule so punishing?

Until the end of July, he was Japan’s vice finance minister for international affairs, the country’s top currency diplomat, or yen czar.

Key to the role was fending off currency market speculators that could trigger turmoil in one of the world’s largest economies.

Historically, authorities intervened to weaken the value of the Japanese currency. A weak yen is good for exporters like Toyota and Sony as it makes goods cheaper for overseas buyers.

But when the yen plummeted during Mr Kanda’s time in office it increased the cost of importing essential items like food and fuel, causing a cost of living crisis in a country more used to seeing prices fall rather than rise.

In his three years in the role, the value of the yen against the US dollar weakened by more than 45%.

To control the yen’s slide, Mr Kanda unleashed an estimated 25 trillion yen ($173bn) to support the currency, marking Japan’s first such intervention in almost a quarter of a century.

“The Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance are very clear. They intervene not at a particular level of the currency, but they intervene when market volatility is too much,” says economist Jesper Koll.

Japan now finds itself on the US Treasury’s watchlist of potential currency manipulators.

But Mr Kanda argues that what he did was not market manipulation.

“Markets should move based on fundamentals but occasionally they fluctuate excessively because of speculation, and they don’t reflect fundamentals which don’t change overnight,” he says.

“When it affects ordinary consumers who have to buy food or fuel, that is when we intervened.”

While countries like the US and UK can raise interest rates to boost the value of their currencies, Japan had for years been unable to put up the cost of borrowing due to the weakness of its economy.

Professor Seijiro Takeshita of the University of Shizuoka says Japan had no other option other than to intervene in the currency markets.

“It is not the right thing to do, but in my opinion it is the only thing they can do.”

The irony is that the yen’s value jumped in recent months without Mr Kanda or his successor lifting a finger after the Bank of Japan surprised the markets with a rate hike, and the country got a new prime minister.

So was the $170bn bid to prop up the yen a waste of money?

No, says Mr Kanda and points out that his interventions actually made a profit although he emphasises that it was never a goal.

On whether or not his actions were ultimately successful he says: “It is not up to me to evaluate, but many say our exchange management stopped the excessive level of speculation.”

Markets or historians should be the final judges, he adds.

After decades of economic stagnation, Mr Kanda also sounds an optimistic note about Japan’s prospects.

“We are finally seeing investments and wages rising, and we have a chance to go back to a normal market economy,” he says.

A more surprising legacy for this “humble public servant” is him becoming a star on the internet after Japanese social media users celebrated his ability to surprise financial markets with a series of AI generated dancing videos.

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