Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in the debate. When my constituents who have made a complaint come to see me, we quite often get to a stage at which I recommend the ombudsman to them. I regularly say to them, “Have faith: ombudsmen quite often find in favour of the complainant.” Ombudsmen are there for a purpose. We cannot merely support the institution of the ombudsman when it makes a convenient finding for the Government of the day. We have to accept its decisions if we are to have an ombudsman. We all know that trust in politics, politicians and MPs is at something of a low point at the moment, no matter what party we are in. I think that is very unfair, because most people in this House, of all parties, are decent people doing their best for their constituents and working very hard, so that reduction in trust really worries me. The response of the Government and Parliament to the ombudsman’s report is really important, because it touches on the issue of trust in our institutions, which have been through a very difficult time.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument. For the benefit of the record, I draw his attention and that of the House to paragraph 459 of the report, which states:

“For most sample complainants we consider the primary injustice is that they were denied opportunities to make informed decisions about some things, and to do some things differently, because of maladministration in DWP’s communication about State Pension age. That is a material injustice.”

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. What he says is accurate. He quotes from the report; it was in July 2021 that the ombudsman found maladministration. In the report on 21 March, it said that that had led to an injustice. Like my right hon. Friend, I will quote briefly from the ombudsman. It said of the Department for Work and Pensions that

“in 2005 it failed to take adequate account of the need for targeted and individually tailored information. In 2006, DWP proposed writing directly to women individually to let them know their State Pension age had changed, but it then failed to act promptly. We found that if DWP had made a reasonable decision about next steps in 2005, and then acted promptly, it would have begun writing to affected women by December 2006.”

My right hon. Friend and other Members will have seen that in the back of the report, there is a table showing what should have happened when.

I, too, have constituents who wrote to me to say that they were very close to the age of 60 at the time. Some had worked all their working life, since the age of 15 or so. They had made all their plans on the basis that they could get their pension at 60, and they literally found out about the change from colleagues in the workplace, sometimes very shortly before they thought they were due to retire.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I will, briefly, but it will probably be the last intervention, as I take heed of what Mr Deputy Speaker said.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The point he makes rings true for me. The very first constituent who came to me with a problem when I was elected seven years ago was a WASPI woman. She was less than two years away from retirement when she learned by accident of the change. Seven years on, she is no better off; in a lot of ways, she is much worse off. A lot of those who are not WASPI women now wonder if they know the truth about when they will get their pension. Does he agree that although this issue is fundamentally about the WASPI women, it is about trust, and women having trust in this institution?

[Andrew Selous]

I agree. The issue of trust is really important, one that this House should not take lightly.

In my South West Bedfordshire constituency, it is estimated that there are 6,000 women in this situation. The cost of their compensation, at level 4, as recommended by the ombudsman, would be £6 million at the lower level, and at the upper level £17.7 million. If we extrapolate from that to the UK, I think the sum is £3.9 billion at the lower end and £11.5 billion at the upper end. We must be honest; I believe in honesty in politics. These are large sums—very large, when we add the amount that we will have to pay the postmasters and postmistresses, for whom we are also all campaigning, and the sums for the victims of the infected blood scandal, for whom most of us are also campaigning; and then there are other campaigns, such as the one relating to Equitable Life.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Selous]

I will because it is the hon. Lady, but this must be the last intervention.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman talked about the way in which the bill for all these compensation schemes is mounting. Does that not merely underline the importance of competent government?

[Andrew Selous]

Of course it is best if Governments get these things right, but government is difficult, and Governments of all parties will make mistakes because they are human. However, I am making a different point on honesty about the overall Government finances. When I was taught economics, a long time ago, I was made aware of the notion of opportunity cost. We can only spend the same pound once, and if we are to spend billions on one thing, we must be honest about the other things on which we cannot spend money—things that the WASPI women may very much want—or the services we will have to cut, or the taxes we will have to raise.

I have tried to find out from the Library how the Treasury reserves work, and how we can account nationally for a contingency fund to deal with issues such as this. We just need a bit of honesty here, as a Parliament. If we are to do the right thing by the WASPI women—as I believe we should; I want us to, and we should do the same for those other groups—we need to consider a fund in the Treasury reserves that is dedicated to contingencies, although it might not be large enough to pay out on every cause in the way we would like; perhaps the nation would not be able to afford that. While I absolutely back the justice of the cause of the WASPI women, and while I think we should honour what the ombudsman said, or at least move towards doing that, we need to be honest about the nation’s finances and the other calls on the Exchequer.

Let me finish where I began—I will be brief, heeding Mr Deputy Speaker’s injunction. This comes back to the question of trust. We agree with the umpire not just when we are in favour of the umpire’s decision. Either we have an ombudsman or we do not, and while the ombudsman’s finding may be uncomfortable or inconvenient, it is neverthe- less the finding, and we should do the right thing.