The government has estimated that it would cost a total of £181.4bn to reverse the state pension age (SPA) for women back to 60 between now and 2025/26.

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report found that it would cost £188.4bn in additional state pension costs and £9.9bn in “other pensioner benefits”, such as Pension Credit.

This would be slightly offset by a £16.9bn saving in working age benefits.

The judicial review into whether women born in the 1950s were sufficiently communicated with regarding the changes to their state pension age is currently underway.

The campaign group responsible for the review, Backto60, has been campaigning for the SPA for women to be rolled back to 60.

DWP’s analysis replaces a previous cost estimate, published in 2016, which estimated the cost of undoing the (SPA) for women between 2010/11 and 2020/21 would be £77bn.

It stated that the reasons for the difference were the different time periods assessed, “the £77bn figure covered the state pension only”, the lower figure “assumed no uprating of the state pension” and the £77bn was calculated before the new state pension was introduced.

The government also estimated the cost of reversing the 1995 and 2011 acts regarding state pension age for men at £33.8bn. This comprises £17.6bn in state pension benefits, £19.4bn in “other pensioner benefits”, while being partially offset by a £3.2bn saving in working age benefits.

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