Why I will continue to support the WASPI campaign for full & fair compensation

Five years on, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report was finally published today.

Today’s PHSO report finds:

• Research reported in 2004 showed that only 43% of all women affected by the 1995 Pensions Act knew their State Pension was 65, or between 60 and 65. The research report said it was ‘essential’ that particular groups, including ‘women who would be affected by the change’, should be ‘appropriately targeted with accessible information on the equalisation of [State Pension age]’.

• DWP failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information when making decisions about next steps in August 2005. That was maladministration.

• In 2006, DWP first proposed direct mail to women whose State Pension age was between 60 and 65. It then failed to act promptly on that proposal, or to give due weight to how much time had already been lost since the 1995 Pensions Act. That was also maladministration.

This is an important acknowledgment of the injustice millions of women born in the 1950s have faced after being cheated out of their pensions.

However, the compensation offered of between £1,000-£3,000 is not proportionate to the fraction of what many women have lost out on.

In the years fighting for justice so many of these women have been plunged into poverty and many have died while waiting for the justice they rightly deserve.

Yet the Department for Work and Pensions are refusing to comply with the PHSO recommendations and therefore this matter will now be brought to Parliament.

It is for the reasons stated above that I will continue to support the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign for full and fair compensation, as I have done since I entered Parliament in 2019.