Ministers have been accused of ducking their responsibility to help women who have been adversely affected by state pension age increases.

SNP pensions spokesman Ian Blackford urged the Government to show "respect" to the women who campaigners argue have had to rethink their retirement plans at short notice.

But Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green said concessions had already been made and that further ones "can't be justified".

Plans to increase the state pension age for women from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2020 were initially set out in 1995.

But the coalition government decided to speed up the process in 2011, resulting in the state pension age for women due to increase to 65 in November 2018 and to 66 by October 2020.

The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign group have led the fight to try and win increased support for those affected and Mr Blackford said it was time the Government listened.

"We should remind ourselves of what a pension is," he said as he led an opposition day debate on the subject.

"It is deferred income. Women and men have paid National Insurance in expectation of receiving a state pension.

"That's the deal, plain and simple. You pay in, you get your entitlement.

"You don't expect the Government without effective notice to change the rules.

"What has been done to the Waspi women has undermined fairness and equity."

Mr Blackford pointed to the 240 Waspi-related petitions which have been submitted to Parliament by MPs from across the UK in recent weeks as evidence that the Government needed to take action.

"Parliament and the petitioners should be given more respect by the Government," he said.

Mr Blackford urged the Government not to be as "pigheaded" as previous administrations as he referenced opposition to the Suffragette movement.

He said: "The Tory Government have ducked their responsibility to the Waspi women for too long. It is time to face up to the reality.

"Pensions are not a privilege, they are a contract and the UK Government has broken it."

But Mr Green said concessions had already been made to help those affected.

He said: "No woman will experience increases of more than 18 months as a result and in fact for 81%, for more than four in five of the women affected, the increase will not exceed 12 months compared to the previous timetable.

"This concession benefited almost a quarter of a million women who would otherwise have experienced delays of up to two years and introducing further concessions can't be justified given the imperative to focus public resources on helping those who are most in need."

Labour former frontbencher Andy Burnham intervened and said: "You talked about those in need as if the Waspi women are not in need, of course many of them are in need.

"Can I say to you, you are getting onto resources, what price justice? What price doing the right thing?"

Conservative Maggie Throup (Erewash) said a "hate campaign" was damaging the Waspi group.

She asked Mr Green: "Do you agree with me that the message of the Waspi campaigners, however well intentioned, has been severely damaged by the hate campaign on social media and in constituency offices against MPs - such as myself - who have a different viewpoint to those campaigners?"

Mr Green said he disapproved of any form of personal abuse, adding: "Every Waspi woman I've met has been entirely polite, entirely reasonable, and I'd wish that to continue."

Former minister Bob Neill was among the Tory MPs to voice concerns, noting there were some women who gave up work for health reasons and therefore could not return to the workplace.

He said: "It doesn't seem to me that we have yet put in place adequate measures to do fairness to those people who can't change their situation."

Mr Green said there are "specific issues that need to be dealt with for this particular group", adding working-age benefits are designed to help such people.

He added: "I want to make clear that this particular group of women will be entitled to working-age benefits and if there are barriers to them claiming them then we need to remove those barriers."

Conservative former minister Tim Loughton said the Department for Work and Pensions has appointed seven "older people's champions" since April 2015 to "cover every job centre in the country".

He told Mr Green: "It sounds good but in practice it's really not going to make a lot of difference, is it?"

Mr Green said they have been appointed on a regional level, adding this is a "first step" in a system which "needs to improve".

The Work and Pensions Secretary later said: "I hope the House will see I'm extremely open to ideas to help this group of women but in ways that reflect the modern world of work and don't blur the lines between working-age benefits and pensions.

"It should go without saying that any idea we bring forward needs to be not just practical but affordable, and none of the ideas which have been brought forward - which concentrate purely on the pensions issue - achieve this."

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) said: "I feel very sorry for (Mr Green) today because he's coming to the despatch box to actually pick up a mess that's been created by others."

She pointed to former chancellor George Osborne's decision to speed up the process of equalising the pension age.

Ms Dorries said: "I'm not saying that financially we can achieve what most people are asking for.

"But what I would say, in the spirit of fairness and amelioration and pouring some oil on troubled waters, would (Mr Green) please go away and have a look and see just around the edges, maybe some of these women, maybe the older women in this group... maybe we can do something, not all of it, not something for everybody, but maybe in the spirit of fairness there would be something that we could do."

SNP MP Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) said women have been trapped in a "nightmare".

She said: "The Government has ducked its responsibility in this matter for far too long, it is time to do what's right, what's fair and what is just."

Labour MP Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) told the Government: "I'm going to give you a warning - the women affected by these pension changes, the Waspi women, their families and increasingly the general public are getting more angry and they are getting better organised.

"They are not going away and we are not going to stop talking about the issue."

But Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet), who sits on the Work and Pensions Select Committee, said "Waspi does not speak with one voice".

He said: "The reason for that is that there is no one solution that fits all the problems."

Mr Mackinlay said a number of different proposals have been put forward to try to reverse the changes, but these are either too expensive or apply to only certain women caught up.

He urged the DWP to offer a "lighter touch approach" in jobseekers and employment claims from the women which would not demand endless proof of job hunting but would offer job coaching and advice.

Tory Tim Loughton said the Government had "refused to engage with Waspi women".

He said: "This problem is not going to go away, Waspi women are not going to go away, we are not going to go away on their behalf.

"Yet throughout the entire last 12 months there has been no movement from the Government whatsoever, no recognition of the very real hardship that is now being suffered by some of these Waspi women."

But David T.C. Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, accused the opposition benches of "playing political games".

Tory Richard Graham (Gloucester) said powers to take action on the issue had been devolved to Scotland and that the SNP was "leading the Waspi campaign up the garden path and it is seriously to be regretted".