Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Mark Francois Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Our greatest Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, said that

“power has only one duty—to secure the social welfare of the people.”

Being held to account cements the legitimacy that Governments derive from their democratic mandate. Beyond parliamentary accountability, over time other checks and balances have emerged. With due respect to the excellent Petitions Committee, and the Intelligence and Security Committee on which I serve, the ombudsmen, with their genesis in the late 1960s, perhaps in public terms best represent that kind of independence, accountability and scrutiny.

References to the ombudsmen for their considered deliberation are more than an ornament to our polity; they have become an essential component of it. Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum, represented in this debate, appreciate that just as things are not lightly sent to the ombudsman, neither should their judgments be taken lightly. In particular, a Government who attempt to brush under the carpet the fallacies, faults and frailties identified by the ombudsman are guilty not just of bad housekeeping but of concealing systemic failure.

Yet that is exactly what has befallen the WASPI women: those wives, mothers and grandmothers who toiled hard for Britain only to be told that their fair expectations of life after work were to be blighted, not just by the consequence of Government policy—the principles of which, by the way, they do not contest—but by its wholly inadequate implementation by a Government Department.

In the words of the ombudsman,

“maladministration in DWP’s communication about the 1995 Pensions Act resulted in complainants losing opportunities to make informed decisions about some things and to do some things differently, and diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control.”

The ombudsman’s remedy is to recompense on a scale—a series of levels from 1 to 6. The ombudsman recommended a level 4 response, which relates to

“a significant and…lasting injustice that has, to some extent, affected someone’s ability to live a relatively normal life.”

Few, if anyone, anticipated the current Government’s careless disregard of this just cause or of the ombudsman’s recommendations. It was surprising, because the Prime Minister himself had made it clear that he believed in “fair and fast” compensation. The Work and Pensions Secretary said:

“This injustice can’t go on. I have been a longstanding supporter of the WASPI campaign”.

The Home Secretary said:

“I’m backing the WASPI women…I’ll keep up our fight for a better deal for WASPI women.”

Even the Deputy Prime Minister said categorically that Labour “will compensate” the WASPI women as it is “their money”.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

I have had about 100 emails from WASPI women in my constituency. The ombudsman found that there was a case to answer, and recommended five options for compensation, leaning towards option 4. Does my right hon. Friend agree that even if the Government will not grant option 4, they should at least give the WASPI women something?

[Sir John Hayes]

In working alongside the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for today’s debate, I met many WASPI women, and have since. They are not unreasonable, and they do not expect every line of their most ambitious desire to be met, but they did expect the Government to make some proper reference back to the ombudsman’s report and, consequently, to approach them with a proposal to settle their demands. I find it extraordinary that the Government did not do that. I am genuinely really surprised. The WASPI women are reasonable people, and they understand the constraints the Government are working within, but they expected greater respect for and greater reference to the independent scrutiny from the ombudsman.

Members might have thought, from all that I have read out about what Ministers said when they were shadow Ministers, that the Government’s position was clear, but it appears not. I say again, as I have before to the new Minister: change course. Few of those with power readily welcome criticism. Fewer still enjoy being chastised. But some—just some, and I hope that includes the Minister—correct mistakes, right wrongs and do what is just willingly. In so doing, they grace the very concept of political privilege by nurturing popular faith in the rightful exercise of power.

The challenge of meeting the reasonable demands of the WASPI women by simply implementing what the independent ombudsman recommended is an opportunity for those in the Government with responsibility to step up and dignify their office by doing what is right. The way the WASPI women have been treated is just not fair. When public faith in fairness is lost, to draw on the words of the great poet W. B. Yeats,

“The ceremony of innocence is drowned”

as it becomes clear that

“The best lack all conviction”.