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Thousands of women in their 50s may be unaware they will have to work longer before reaching retirement, MPs warn.

The Commons Work and Pensions committee is calling for “urgent changes” to the leaflets sent out to households which explain the changes in retirement ages.

Committee chairman Frank Field accused hapless ministers of ‘bungling’ the public information campaign to warn women in their 50s that the pension age is rising to 66 over the course of this decade.

“Successive governments have bungled the fundamental duty to tell women of these major changes to when they can expect their state pension,” the Labour MP said.

“Retirement expectations have been smashed as some women have only been told a couple of years before the date they expected to retire that no such retirement pension is now available.”

The interim report - rushed out by the worried committee - warns of “widespread concerns” that women had been unaware of increases in their state pension age dating back to 1995.

One woman told the MPs she had been sent a letter by the Pension Service in 2005 that did not even mention her retirement age.

In 2012, two years before her 60th birthday and what she thought was her pension age, she received another letter saying she was not entitled until she turned 66.

The MPs said the situation was so “urgent” that they could not wait for their inquiry to be completed before speaking out.

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“The Government is right to want people to engage more with their pensions. Central to achieving this is making pensions more approachable,” the committee said.

“At a crucial time of reform to the state pension and the state pension age, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statements are insufficiently clear.

“This lack of clarity increases the chances that people misunderstand the value of their state pension or the age from which they will receive it. In turn, this increases the chances that they will not best plan for retirement.”

(Image: Getty)

But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) insisted there has been a widescale and successful public information campaign about changing retirement ages since 2009.

It said that between 2009 and 2011 it sent letters to 1.2million women born between 6th April 1950 and 5th April 1953 who would be affected by the changes.

A spokesman said further letters were sent to over 5million people between 2011 and 2013 following legislation that accelerated the equalisation of men’s and women’s state pension ages and brought forward the rise to 66.

He added: “The existence of different state pension ages for women and men represents a longstanding inequality, and the abolition of this discriminatory situation is long overdue.”