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Labour has been accused of “abandoning” WASP women hit hard by major changes to the state pension age by failing to promise compensation in the party manifesto.
The Conservative Party has also refused to commit to compensation in its manifesto, a decision that activists from Women Against State Pension Injustice (WASPI) have described as “outrageous”.
This comes despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) being found guilty of “misadministration” for failing to properly inform women born in the 1950s that their pension age would be raised from 60 to 65 or 66.
In a damning ruling handed down by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) in March, the watchdog recommended payments of between £1,000 and £2,950 to WASP women.
The Ombudsman said it could cost the UK government more than £10 billion to compensate millions of women affected by the pension age delay.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives decided they could afford to make such promises: promises to bring forward compensation for victims of the Post Office and infected blood scandals were not extended to WASP women.
For many older women voters, the failure to receive benefits they were due in their early 60s remains a major frustration.
Political parties not convinced WASPI issue amounts to “scandal”
Minister for Work and Pensions Mel Stride refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing in his response to the PHSO report.
She noted that not all women born in the 1950s were adversely affected because “many women were aware of the change in state pension age”.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves acknowledged last week that “irregularities” had occurred but said no funds would be set aside for compensation.
Sir Keir Starmer’s team has been careful to avoid using the word “scandal” in relation to the WASPI affair, and his party has said it will consider the PHSO report if it comes to power.
But there are clearly other priorities, and Reeves argued that the state of the state’s finances “means we can’t do everything we’d like to do”.
Huge compensation costs
Both sides know the costs of compensation will be huge: PHSO estimates that compensation for all 3.6 million women affected could reach £10.5 billion.
The WASPI campaign is calling for £10,000 for each person, bringing the total compensation payout to around £36 billion.
Sympathetic lawmakers have proposed a two-tiered system that would provide larger payments to those directly affected, such as those who left work before turning 60, and smaller payments to everyone else.
In 2019, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party promised similar compensation for WASP women in its manifesto, which at the time estimated the cost of compensation could be up to £58 billion.
Intergenerational equity
Some critics say it will be difficult to find significant funding for pensioners who are already prioritised for generous support through the triple lock.
“It’s just not fair to take more money from younger generations to give to the wealthiest generation of women in history,” said financial expert Francis Coppola.
Some argue that equalising the state pension age and putting women on a par with men was necessary to end certain forms of sexism.
The government has the power to change the pension system.
Critics also argue that the government has full rights to change state pension eligibility and that women have had ample time to prepare for the age change.
In fact, some women born in the 1950s said they were glad to read the newspapers and watch the news in the 1990s and learn about the changes that were coming.
But where the DWP was found guilty of mismanagement by PHSO was over failing to properly inform women – the watchdog said this meant some women “lost the opportunity to make informed decisions about their finances”.
The Waspi movement argued that women who left work just before turning 60, believing they could quickly rely on a state pension, had found themselves in a dire situation.
I I heard stories of women who were forced to sell their homes, who were forced into jobs they didn’t want after retirement, and who were driven to nervous breakdowns.
Wasp campaign chair Angela Madden said it was “hugely disappointing” that Labour had “abandoned us at the last minute”. She added: “Despite promises made to victims of other scandals, the Labour party appears to have forgotten about us”.