Born in an era where you couldn’t get a bank account without your husband’s permission, excluded from private workplace pension schemes and refused equal pay, 1950s-born women have seen the evolution of equality, only to be denied fairness at the final hurdle.
In March 2024, the WASPI campaign was vindicated by the Ombudsman’s findings that the Department of Work and Pensions had failed to properly tell women born in the 1950s about changes to their State Pension age, and as such they should be compensated between £1,000 and £2,950 each for this injustice.
When Labour took over Government in July, a party led by a man who once stood with campaigners and signed a pledge for compensation, progress towards justice felt near.
However, the Government’s shock statement just days before Christmas took not just WASPI women, but many of their MPs by surprise.
While Labour apologised and accepted maladministration, they simultaneously fell drastically short of administering justice, using a mishmash of excuses to not compensate 1950s women.
From claiming that most women knew about the changes (despite surveying only 203 affected women and a using a question that only asked about vague awareness of potential state pension age changes) to saying a compensation scheme would be too complex (the Department of Work and Pensions has a billion-pound budget and tens of thousands of staff), we have been handed every excuse in the book.
And it isn’t just WASPI women who have been confused by the Government’s inability to form one coherent argument against compensation.
This week the Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman told the Work and Pensions Select Committee that the Government’s justifications for not compensating women “undermined” the way it responded to the report in accepting maladministration.
To add to this injustice, the Government ran roughshod over constitutional checks and balances by ignoring the recommendations of a six-year investigation by its own independent watchdog, setting a dangerous precedent that an Ombudsman can be simply ignored if the findings aren’t convenient.
With both the betrayal of WASPI women and the constitutional chaos that arises if you ignore the independent body that holds you to account, it seems the Government underestimated the feelings of its MPs on these matters and the Labour MSPs who have come knocking at the door of Westminster.
The Scottish Parliament voted unanimously for a motion calling on the UK Government to compensate WASPI women as recommended by the Ombudsman.
Westminster leader of the SNP Stephen Flynn MP has also secured a 10-minute rule Bill with the first reading next week, allowing MPs to come to the Commons chamber and express their discontent.
The Ombudsman’s report was given to Parliament, not the Government. It is only right that all 650 MPs are given the chance to vote on a compensation scheme in Government time. This is the only Parliamentary route that can force Labour’s hand.
Labour frontbenchers made a calculated political choice and in doing so, have severely underestimated the determination of 1950s women to ensure that they receive the justice the Ombudsman recommended.
