Millions of WASPI women across Lancashire given fresh hope with new government announcement
Millions of WASPI women have been given fresh hope with a new government announcement.
The government is considering a U-turn over its refusal to give any compensation to women who say they were kept in the dark about changes to the state pension age.
‘Waspi women’ - the nickname for members of Women Against State Pension Inequality - are those born in the 1950s who were caught in the gap when the pension age was raised from 60 to 65.
They have always claimed that they were not told about the changes and so planned for retirement earlier than they should have done - in some cases at personal cost.
The government has previously argued that it was up to the individual to prepare for retirement life, and so has not offered any compensation. But now it says new evidence has come to light.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said his department would review the policy, announced last year. It came as court proceedings led to the rediscovery of a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation which had led to officials stopping sending automatic pension forecast letters out.
However, Mr McFadden offered campaigners no guarantees that the review would lead to compensation being awarded.
The minister said “in the interests of fairness and transparency”, the government would reconsider its decision.
Angela Maden, Chair of Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI), said:
“WASPI are challenging the decision the Government made last December after the country’s longest running Parliamentary Ombudsman investigation, followed by months of deliberation.
“The previous Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, confidently told Parliament there were “two facts—that most women knew the State Pension age was increasing and that letters are not as significant as the ombudsman says” and that they meant “that there should be no scheme of financial compensation to 1950s-born women in response to the Ombudsman’s report”.
“This was, of course, complete rubbish and a gaslighting denial of WASPI women’s lived experience.”
She added: “The government seems to accept that it got at least one of those crucial so called ‘facts’ completely wrong because officials did not show her a DWP-commissioned report that completely contradicted it.”