Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) on securing the debate, on campaigning on this issue, and on making sure that this debate came to the main Chamber. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions this afternoon. As well as hearing the very strong and powerful case around this particular issue, we have heard personal examples. Whether it is Gill from Tiverton, Ann from Newcastle, Helen from Seaford or Paula from Dewsbury, we have heard that many women rightly feel a sense of raw injustice, and the Government must act.

I have met WASPI women many times in Parliament, but I have also met them in my constituency. A couple of years before I was elected, I met a group of 30 WASPI women. I regret that I cannot recall the name of the woman whose case I remember, but her circumstances stuck with me. She was quietly spoken, and I could tell that she had real rage and fury inside her, but she was not prepared to show it. She just said, “I’ve spent my entire life working. I’ve raised a family. I’ve watched the pennies, and I was proud to stand on my own two feet. But at the end of my working life, I felt robbed of my money and robbed of my dignity. Even though I know this situation is not of my making and not my fault, I feel a tremendous sense of shame.”

That really stuck with me. Some 3.8 million women are affected by this issue, and many of them feel a sense of shame. They should not, but they do. It is really frustrating that the Government, notwithstanding the terrible inheritance that they received, have chosen to do nothing, and there are two problems facing them. The first is that an obvious injustice has been left unaddressed. The second is that, as so many Members from across the House have said, it sets a very dangerous precedent. For some women, an offer of an apology or a payment might be symbolic, but it is far more than that for many of them. It is about survival, and it would help them to get out of the struggle that they are now in.

On behalf of my party, I urge the Government please to reflect after this debate, and to go back to the drawing board and think about what can be done. At the very least, they should think of something to help those women who are struggling the most. Doing nothing is really not an option. If the rebellion earlier this week was for any reason at all, it was to send a message to this Government that their own party, this House and the British public want a Government who will stand up for the underdog—those who are hard done by in life, by the Government and by circumstances out of their control. I hope the Government listen today and act, because to govern is to choose. The Government must know that it is not too late to make a different choice.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

Well, the right hon. Member has demonstrated more affection on previous occasions is what I would gently say to that. If he is asking me whether the Government’s position has changed, I am afraid that the answer, from his perspective, is no.

[Daisy Cooper]

A few moments ago, the Minister said that the Government had concluded that it would not be appropriate to apply a flat rate to all 3.8 million women. Have the Government done any modelling on paying a flat rate to any other smaller cohorts within that 3.8 million women—for example, women on pension credit, or under a certain level of income or savings?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I think we have discussed versions of this question before. Yes, there have been models that may have focused on a subset of women—for example, those on pension credit—but that still comes up against the fundamental challenge of payments based on some other qualifying condition, which in this case is income, and not the injustice that has been suffered. The ombudsman set out that compensation was due for the injustice, not just the virtue of being a woman born in the 1950s.

[Daisy Cooper]

rose—

[Torsten Bell]

I will give way, but then I will wrap up before Madam Deputy Speaker loses her patience.

[Daisy Cooper]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. He will be aware that in other compensation schemes, there are often waves of compensation. The first wave of compensation can be on one indicator, with a second wave looking at other complicating factors. Have the Government looked at that model?

[Torsten Bell]

I refer the hon. Lady to our very detailed response, which was published in December. It runs over a number of pages, so I will send her the relevant extracts on the conclusions that we have considered. [Interruption.] I will have to conclude now because I am testing the patience of Madam Deputy Speaker.

I recognise that none of what I have said today is likely to change the minds of many Members here, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) has kindly pointed out to me. I know that, not least because I see many familiar faces from similar debates in Westminster Hall, as the even more friendly right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has told me. The campaigners, too, are unlikely to be satisfied. Their tenacity has been clear for all to see and has been attested to sufficiently today. They are right to continue to point to the wider context, which is that society has been far from universally kind to women born in the 1950s, as they have wrestled with discrimination in the labour market and beyond, which is what the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake) set out earlier. Nothing regarding the case I have set out today diminishes any of that. However, the Government have made their decision and we owe it to everybody to be clear about it. It is right that hon. Members hold us to account for it, as the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) has set out.

That has happened today and in other debates in the House, including Westminster Hall. As I have said before, there are lessons for the Department to learn, and learn them we will. We will also continue to support women born in the 1950s and pensioners generally, not least by raising the state pension and turning around our NHS. I know that they and hon. Members will expect nothing less.