Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress

Debate between Jim Shannon and Rebecca Long Bailey

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Lady is spot on. The women have suffered an injustice, and they have been ignored. They should not have had to fight for so long. The sad fact is that already so many women have died waiting to see justice. What will it take to fix this? Will it take an ITV drama to shine a light on what has happened before everybody gets angry enough to do something about it? I do not know the answer to that, but what I do know is that the facts are clear. Even the ombudsman’s report sets that out, and the Government need to act urgently. The hon. Lady has been a fantastic campaigner in this House over the years. and I am sure the women are truly thankful for her support.

The 1950s Women of Wales propose, in line with CEDAWinLAW, that redress could be an initial lump sum to allow swift financial relief, with additional payments over a five-year period. Even the previous Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee suggested a scheme. He wrote to the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to suggest that a rules-based scheme be considered. The letter describes a system where payments are adjusted within a range, based on the ombudsman’s severity of injustice scale, to reflect the extent of change in the individual state pension age and the notice of the change the individual received. It would be quick to administer, he said, and inexpensive compared with a more bespoke scheme. He further suggested that there should also be flexibility for individuals to make a case for additional compensation for direct loss. And that Select Committee Chair is now a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions! Who knew? Perhaps the Minister could sit down and have a cup of tea with himself to discuss the plans he had before he entered office.

Any scheme must be responsible and financially sustainable, so let us have a look at some options on that, too.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Jim Shannon]

There are 77,000 WASPI women in Northern Ireland, 7,000 of them in Strangford. Does the hon. Lady appreciate their palpable anger about how they have been mistreated and about the injustice that they wish to see addressed? On behalf of those 7,000 constituents of mine, I seek the same thing as the hon. Lady and all of us in this Chamber today.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Gentleman is a powerful advocate for women in Northern Ireland. He is right: what has happened is wrong, plain and simple. We need to see action today. I promise I am coming to the end, Madam Deputy Speaker—I do not want to try your patience.

There are options to make sure that schemes are financially sustainable. WASPI has calculated that HM Treasury has saved a whopping £181 billion by increasing the state pension age alone. Other options include applying a 1% to 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, which would raise up to £22 billion a year, or equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates, which would raise £15.2 billion a year. Applying national insurance to investment income would raise £8.6 billion a year. Ending stealth subsidies on banks could raise up to £55 billion over the next five years—something even Gordon Brown has advocated.

Cost does not need to be, and should not be, a barrier to justice. In January the Deputy Ombudsman told the Work and Pensions Committee that the DWP at the time knew that the women did not know, and that they failed to act. He said:

“if you accept this maladministration and you accept people were affected by that maladministration, there is a conversation about how you factor cost into the need to do justice.”

The trauma, hardship, poverty and sheer stress that these women have been put through for a decade must make justice for them a matter of urgency.

I have a lot of time for the Minister. I call on him to get round the table with these women and to listen to them. I ask him to listen to the evidence, put considerations of financial redress for 1950s-born women who have suffered back on the table and allow full and adequate parliamentary scrutiny for any proposal, as the ombudsman intended.