Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, and I am grateful to her for bringing an experience into the conversation, rather than talking in generalities. Obviously, she will understand why I cannot comment on the individual’s situation, but she makes a number of really important points there, which I would like to acknowledge. Clearly, there were a number of women who had hoped to retire early and then found they were retiring later. The challenge is that the specifics of this decision were about what difference it would have made had those letters been sent 28 months earlier, because that is what the ombudsman’s finding was about. I know that the issues people are angry about are much wider than that, so the debate has been much wider than that, but that is what the Government had to respond to, which is why it has been said in the way it has.

I was also sorry to hear that that individual did not get the support she would have wanted from the DWP. The Government are now investing very heavily in supporting people of all ages. Some of them find they are not well enough to be in the labour market until retirement; others want to get a job but find it is difficult, and it is hard to be older. But we are investing heavily in trying to support people in all those circumstances, such as those who find that their health is struggling but would still like to get back into work because they are not ready to retire, and those who want to carry on because they need the money. We are investing a lot in our work programmes and work coaches, tailoring the support there. I really hope that if that woman came along to a jobcentre tomorrow, she would get a warm welcome and someone to support her, enabling her to do that. In the meantime, the benefits system provides support for those who cannot work but are not yet ready to retire. I thank the noble Baroness for sharing that experience.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has made the case for why the Government did not provide any compensation. Quite clearly, the retirement age had to be aligned fairly quickly. In the interests of fairness, we would all support that. But will she accept that, in the wake of what the ombudsman said, the group of WASPI women has once again felt led up the garden path, feeling that they are going to get something at last only to be let down again?

One of the most depressing things in this whole saga is the conviction that these individuals, despite the delay—the maladministration in informing them—would not really have taken any notice of the letters anyhow. Could the Minister tell the House quite what the Government are doing to make sure that people are well aware of what their retirement package will be? The pensions dashboard is all very well, but it is clearly not going to reach the parts that have failed to have been reached in the past. Given how hard retirement will be for a lot of people, is she sure that they are now getting the message?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her questions. I fully understand that the fact that the Government had to take the decision twice will have caused uncertainty, but the decision had to be taken again because of a piece of evidence that emerged during the legal challenge. Therefore, the Government faced a choice: should they just ignore that fact and carry on regardless, or should they withdraw the decision, review all of the relevant evidence, including that piece, and make a decision? The Secretary of State took the right decision: to withdraw the decision, look at the information presented to him and the relevant evidence, including that piece, and reach a view.

On the position of individuals, the evidence across the piece suggested that a clear majority of 1950s-born women knew that the state pension age was changing and therefore had the opportunity to find out more. But the noble Baroness raises a really important point: a lot has happened since then, so we have a campaign going on to encourage people to check their state pension age. It is very easy to do this now. You can do it online, which most people can, or you can find non-digital ways. I do it myself every now and again. It tells you when you are going to retire and how much state pension you will get.

Also, bringing forward the dashboard for those who have private pensions will enable them to find out, if they have pots stashed in different places, what they have in them. And there is other support coming through in the Pension Schemes Bill, again to make sure that people get the kind of help they need. We are making sure that in future people will get clear and appropriate amounts of notice and we will do all that we can to communicate with them in a range of ways, so that the message gets across.