Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Adrian Ramsay Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Stringer.

Surely the abiding question that arises from this debacle is: what is the point in having an ombudsman if, when maladministration is found, it can be swept aside and ignored? Why have we an ombudsman? Governments make mistakes. Governments get things wrong. People think Governments get things wrong, so they want to complain. So what do we do? We set up an independent ombudsman. Why? Because Governments should not be judge in their own cause. That is the whole purpose and ethos of having an ombudsman. But in this case the Government want to be judge in their own cause.

We are not talking about some incidental, slight illustration of maladministration. Let us remind ourselves that the ombudsman found that

“some women lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances. It diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control”

and therefore led to injustice. We are talking about injustice—we are not just talking about maladministration —and injustice needs to be rectified. The Government say, “We apologise”—frankly, the sincerity of that apology is weighed in the balance of their refusal to compensate—but it is not just a matter of saying sorry. It is a matter of putting it right. That is what we do when we find an injustice: we try to put it right.

What have the Government done in this case? We had the most spurious attempt to repudiate the ombudsman’s findings. The Government told us, “Oh, well, only one in four people actually read unsolicited letters from DWP.” What was the point in sending them then? They might as well have saved the postage.

It really is pathetic and appalling that the Government have reached the stage of saying, “Nothing to see here; nothing to do here; we’re doing nothing about it” to women the independent ombudsman says were not just wronged but had an injustice visited upon them. I say to this Government: it is not a sign of weakness to admit that you are wrong; it is a sign of strength. The Government would rise in the estimation of many if, rather than hide behind their huge majority in the House, they exercised the strength of saying, “We’ve got this wrong.”

[Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is making an extremely powerful case about righting an injustice and about the importance for our parliamentary system of following the recommendations of an ombudsman. Does he agree that the Government revisiting this issue will strengthen our democracy? We have heard just how strong the cross-party consensus is; notably, that includes many Labour Members, as well as Members of other parties, referring to the pledges we made in the election. Is that not why it is so important that the Government think again to restore faith in democracy?

[Jim Allister]

This matter goes to the very heart of public confidence in our system of Government. I started by saying that Governments get things wrong, and people think they get things wrong, so the Government have an independent arbitrator. But we cannot have an independent arbitrator and then throw the findings in the bin, and that is what is happening here. It goes to the very heart of confidence in Government, whichever party is in power. If maladministration of this magnitude is found, there must be recompense for those against whom the injustice was wrought.

I say to the Government that many of their Back Benchers are saying loud and clear that it is time to rethink. It certainly is time to rethink, and in that there is strength. On behalf of the 77,000 WASPI women in Northern Ireland, who are with those in the rest of this United Kingdom, I say that it is beyond time for the Government to rethink. It is time to put right the wrong that was done to all these women.