Waspi women will not receive compensation

Women affected by the way changes to the state pension age were communicated have been told for the second time they will not receive compensation.

Labour’s previous policy not to offer redress was reviewed following the rediscovery of a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation, which at the time led to officials stopping sending automatic pension forecast letters out.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden told the Commons on Thursday: “The evidence shows that the vast majority of 1950s-born women already knew the state pension age was increasing thanks to a wide range of public information, including through leaflets, education campaigns, information in GP surgeries, on TV, radio, cinema and online.

“To specifically compensate only those women who suffered injustice would require a scheme that could reliably verify the individual circumstances of millions of women.”

He added: “The question is about the impact of the delay in sending these letters.

“The evidence, taken as a whole, including from 2007, suggests the majority of 1950s-born women would not have read and recalled the contents of an unsolicited pensions letter, even if it had been sent earlier.

“Furthermore, the evidence also suggests that those less knowledgeable about pensions, the very women who most needed to engage with a letter and where it might have made a difference, were the least likely to read it, so an earlier letter would have been unlikely to make a difference to what the majority of women knew about their own state pension age.”

Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) has long-campaigned for compensation, with chairwoman Angela Madden accusing the Government of “utter contempt”.

She said: “Waspi is taking legal advice and all options remain on the table. We stand ready to pursue every avenue in Parliament and in the courts to secure the justice that has been so shamefully denied.”

A report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has previously suggested compensation ranging between £1,000 and £2,950 could be appropriate for each of those affected by how state pension changes had been communicated.

A wider flat-rate scheme would cost up to £10.3 billion, Pat McFadden said, “and would simply not be right or fair, given it would be paid to the vast majority who were aware of the changes”.

He continued: “The Government has come to the same conclusion on compensation as (Liz Kendall), the previous secretary of state, announced in December 2024.”

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