Prime Minister told to end the injustice by WASPI women

Mr Blackford urged the Prime Minister to act on an SNP motion, passed in November, which demanded an improvement to the transitional measures for women born on or after April 6 1951 who have been adversely affected by moves to speed up increases in the state pension age.

Mr Blackford, speaking during Prime Minister's Questions, said: "Today in the United Kingdom, 3.8 million women are not receiving the pension they are entitled to.

"A vote in this House in late November received unanimous cross party support, 288 to zero, calling on the Government in London to do the right thing.

"Will the Prime Minister do her bit for gender equality and end the injustice faced by 1950s women?"

Plans to increase the state pension age for women between 2010 and 2020 were initially set out in 1995.

But this process was sped up by the coalition government in 2011, resulting in the state pension age for women due to increase to 65 in November 2018 and to 66 by October 2020.

Campaigners, led by the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi), argue that women affected by the changes have been required to rethink their retirement plans at relatively short notice and have suffered financial hardship.

Mrs May said: "As people are living longer, it is important that we equalise the retirement age, the pension age between men and women.

"We are doing that, we are doing that faster. We have already acted to give greater protection to the women involved, an extra £1 billion has been put in to ensure that nobody is going to see their pension entitlement change by more than 18 months.

"That was a real response to the issue that was being addressed, but I think if he wants to talk about equality then he has to recognise the importance of the equality of the state pension age between men and women."