Millions of women born in the 1950s could be in line for redress over state pension age changes, as the Government has announced it will review its previous decision on this issue.
The Work and Pensions secretary Pat McFadden told the House of Commons that new evidence had come to light, and the government would now look again at whether it now needs to pay compensation to 3.6m women affected by this change.
Last year the then Work and Pension secretary Liz Kendall rejected a Parliamentary Ombudsman report, and said no compensation would be paid to these so-called ‘Waspi’ women – despite previously campaigning with this group for redress while in opposition.
In a statement McFadden said this new evidence would now be considered. However he warned: “Retaking this decision should not be taken as an indication that the government will necessarily decide that it should award financial redress.”
This statement comes a month before the high court legal challenge, brought by The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign against the Government.
This action followed a report by the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman, which was highly critical of government communications about changes to the state pension over several decades. It said this particularly impacted up to 3.6m women born in the 1950s, and recommended that compensation should be paid.
This Waspi campaign has been running for over a decade. Campaigners claim women were given insufficient notice that the state pension age would rise from 60 to 65. This was initially decided on in the 1990s, and was due to happen incrementally between 2010 and 2020. However, the coalition Government speeded up this process, with the SPA rising to 65 by 2018, and then rising to 66 by 2020.
This latest Government announcement was welcomed by the Liberal Democrat party, whose work and pensions spokesperson Steve Darling said: “For years, Liberal Democrats have pushed the Government to fairly compensate Waspi women to reflect the Ombudsman’s recommendations, so today’s decision is a first step in the right direction.
“The Conservative party left our economy in a shambles, but asking wronged pensioners to pay the price of their mismanagement is simply disgraceful, especially during a cost of living crisis.
“Years of needless anguish have been inflicted on millions of women – now the Government must work without any further dither and delay to put things right.”