I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish proposals for a compensation scheme for women born between 6th April 1950 and 5th April 1960 inclusive who have been affected by increases in the state pension age; and for connected purposes.
Like so many injustices created by Westminster, the lack of resolution for the 3.8 million WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women is a disgrace. Those 3.8 million women were given the bombshell that their state pension age was going to increase from 60 to 66 just as they were about to retire and it was too late to do any proper financial planning. Many were already in ill health or worse, and others had taken early retirement and were planning to get by until age 60, when they thought they would receive their state pension.
For nine years, this place has debated the matter, hearing harrowing individual stories, with many MPs, from across the Chamber, pledging they would do all they could to help those women. But for nine years the Government have ignored the plight of those women. They hoped the WASPI women would go away, but they have not, although, unfortunately, 40,000 are dying each year without getting any form of compensation, with some 240,000 having already, tragically, passed away without receiving compensation.
For those now trying to make the best of their retirement, while facing a cost of living crisis, polling has established that half of WASPI women have struggled to pay essential bills in the past six months and, worse, a quarter have struggled to buy food. We know that this is an injustice; indeed, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman judged as far back as July 2021 that the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration due to lack of direct communication. Yet here we are, still fighting for compensation.
The majority of the Tory Back Benchers who previously were very vocal in supporting WASPI women, including the leader of the Tories in Scotland, have all gone quiet, as has the Labour party. Astonishingly, the best I can find from the current Labour leader is:
“We’ve met many of these women and campaigners. And our hearts go out to them…It’s a huge injustice.”
He also said he would need to hear the outcome of the court case he believed was ongoing—that was back in April 2023. Just saying
“our hearts go out to them”
is as bad as saying nothing. It is completely vacuous, and there has been silence in the 10 months since, when the court case had already concluded.
I urge the leader of the Labour party: instead of letting the Tories move his political dial and political compass, find a moral backbone and make a commitment that if this fag-end Tory Government will not deliver some form of compensation, a future Labour Government will. Having said that, given that the current Labour shadow Work and Pensions Secretary has never uttered the words “WASPI” or “1950s women” in Parliament, and neither has Labour’s Women and Equalities spokesperson, I do not see much pressure being put on the Labour leader from within his shadow Cabinet. This is a shocking dereliction of duty from what is supposed to be the main Opposition party at Westminster.