The Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, also known as WASPI, has been furious following the Labour king’s speech. The campaign group says the new prime minister and his party “missed an opportunity” to offer the recommended pay to the women they advocate for.
WASPI chair Angela Madden said the speech did make some good proposals but warned Labour that they risked making the same “disastrous mistakes”. She warned: “Hundreds of MPs support WASPI’s calls for fair and swift compensation, but the new Government has today missed an opportunity to deliver the justice that millions of women born in the 1950s deserve.
“While we welcome the new statutory duty of candor which will ensure government departments are held accountable when things go wrong, it was not possible to take swift action to correct the disastrous mistakes of previous administrations. WASPI will continue to work across party lines to ensure that proposals for financial repair are brought forward within the first 100 days of the new Parliament.”
The WASPI campaign has been campaigning since 2015 for equal state pensions for women born in the 1950s affected by changes to the state pension age. During the election, the campaign urged all parties to consider the 3.8 million women thought to be affected and to come up with a compensation package for them.
WASPI had hoped the government would go one better than its predecessors and follow the recommendations of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman earlier this year. The PHSO found that these women could be entitled to a level four payment, between £1,250 and £3,700, because they were not adequately informed about changes to the state pension age.
While the figures were revealed earlier this year, the PHSO first ruled in favour of WASPI and the women it represents in 2021 when it found the DWP guilty of maladministration. The Ombudsman has since stressed that it is Parliament’s responsibility to vote on compensation.
The Conservative Party was heavily criticised by the campaign for failing to come up with a figure and in the run-up to the election neither the Conservatives nor Labour were able to commit to one. This left the campaign with high hopes that the winning party would announce it during the King’s speech.
