Women affected by controversial changes to the state pension age have lost their landmark High Court fight against the government. 

The state pension age has been increased by successive governments in an attempt to ensure “pension age equalisation”, so that women’s state pension age matched that of men. Nearly four million women born in the 1950s have been affected by the changes, which have raised the state pension age from 60 to as high as 66.

Two claimants – Julie Delve, 61, and Karen Glynn, 63 – took the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court, arguing that raising their pension age “unlawfully discriminated against them on the grounds of age, sex, and age and sex combined”.

The pair, supported by campaign group Backto60, also claimed they were not given adequate notice in order to be able to adjust to the changes.

In a summary of the court’s decision, Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice Whipple said: “The court was saddened by the stories contained in the claimants’ evidence.

“But the court’s role was limited. There was no basis for concluding that the policy choices reflected in the legislation were not open to government. In any event they were approved by parliament.

“The wider issues raised by the claimants about whether the choices were right or wrong or good or bad were not for the court. They were for members of the public and their elected representatives.”

In a statement after the ruling, Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “This is a terrible blow for the millions of women who will have been hoping for a very different outcome today.

“The decision to hike the state pension age with next to no notice didn’t just throw their retirement plans up in the air, it also left many women on lower incomes really struggling to make ends meet.

“Now, almost a quarter of a century later, justice and the state pension that was so cruelly snatched away from them remain disappointingly out of reach.

“It seems perverse that the Department for Work and Pensions had no obligation to inform these women of this significant change.

“But despite today’s decision women born in the 1950s will not give up their campaign to get back what they are rightly owed.”

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Marcia Willis Stewart of Birnberg Peirce, which represented the claimants, said: “We are deeply disappointed by this decision.”

She added that the aim of the “arduous legal process” was “to rectify a substantial and far-reaching injustice”.

Willis Stewart continued: “Sadly, today that injustice remains. The struggle on behalf of those beleaguered women, whose stories saddened the judges but for whom this judgment provided no relief, will continue.”

Former Green Party leader, and their only MP, Caroline Lucas, tweeted: “Deeply disappointing that the courageous and unjustly treated #WASPI women have lost their judicial review in the High Court.

“The gross pensions injustice for #1950swomen remains – I will continue to support their fight.”