About SWAPP

SWAPP is a campaigning network that was set up in May 2002 to fight for justice in women's pensions.  SWAPP is backed by MPs of all political parties, and is headed up by Mrs Margaret Watts from Weymouth, who has first-hand experience of the injustices of the pensions system.  To read her story, click here.

SWAPP was launched at the House of Commons by Rt Hon Charles Kennedy MP, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, well-known agony aunt Claire Rayner, and Steve Webb MP, Lib Dem Work and Pensions Spokesman. 

Steve Webb MP and Claire Rayner at the SWAPP launch

SWAPP seeks to highlight the ways in which women past, present and future have had, and are continuing to receive, a raw deal from the pensions system.   We encourage our members to write to their MPs about the issues that concern them. 

The Married Woman's Stamp

The current focus of the campaign is on the married women's reduced rate National Insurance contribution.   Since the mid 1970s, more than 4.5 million women have paid over £8 billion in return for little or no state pension rights.

Over 1,000 women have written to SWAPP to report that they were never made aware of the implications of their option to pay the "married woman's stamp". This choice meant that they would not receive a pension in their own right at 60, but would get up to 60% on top of their husband's pension when he reached 65.  It also meant that they forfeited the right to other benefits such as jobseeker's allowance, incapacity benefit etc.

For more detail on the married woman's stamp issue, click here.