NEARLY four million women who had years of state pension entitlement “stolen” from them by the Tories raising their retirement age will be compensated under a Labour government, the party pledged today.

Women expecting to retire at 60 were told they would have to wait five years longer when changes to the state pension age were accelerated in 2010.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said his £58 billion pledge would settle a “debt of honour” to 3.8 million affected women born in the 1950s by paying them each an average of £15,380.

The announcement came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson went back on a promise to help those affected.

Mr McDonnell said: “It is an entitlement, it is not a benefit… The scale of this injustice is enormous.”

Campaign group Backto60 recently lost a legal battle against the government over its handling of the state pension age for women.

Mr McDonnell said Labour was working on the assumption that the women would ultimately win their legal fight for compensation.

He said the cost of the policy was not in Labour’s manifesto as it was being treated differently from other financial commitments, likening it to compensation that the government had to pay to victims of asbestos-caused mesothelioma after losing a legal battle last year.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said the women’s pensions had been “stolen” and “should be paid back.”

The retirement age for women rose to 65 in 2018, in line with men, and is expected to go up to 66 by 2020 and to 67 by 2028. The last government planned to raise the pension age to 68 for men and women by 2039.

Campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) argues that they were not given enough time to prepare for the changes.