Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree, and I will come to that point when I talk about the Select Committee’s discussions last week. It is worth adding that the problems caused by that maladministration were exacerbated by the decision in 2011 to increase the state pension age not to 65, as provided by legislation in 1995, but to 66, with very little notice given of that change.

The ombudsman said that had it reported directly to the DWP, it would have recommended that the Department apologise for the maladministration and take steps to put things right. As we all now know, the ombudsman did not report directly to the

Department because of concern that no remedy would be forthcoming. The interim ombudsman, Rebecca Hilsenrath, told the Committee last week that her office had been

“given repeatedly to understand that the Department did not accept our findings.”

Perhaps, when he winds up the debate, the Minister can tell us whether the Department now recognises that there was maladministration in this case.

In laying its report before Parliament in March, the ombudsman asked us in the House to “identify an appropriate mechanism” for providing a remedy. It set out its thinking, namely that the DWP should first acknowledge the maladministration and apologise; secondly, pay financial compensation to the six sample complainants at level 4 of the severity of injustice scale; and, thirdly, identify a remedy for others who had suffered injustice because of the maladministration. As we have heard, the ombudsman estimated that this would involve a sum of between £3.5 billion and £10.5 billion.

We need to find a resolution to this issue, and to find it quite quickly, because it has dragged on for a very long time. Angela Madden, the chair of the WASPI campaign, told the Work and Pensions Committee last week that a woman from the affected cohort dies every 13 minutes, which is a powerful point to make.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I want to ask the right hon. Member about resolution. Given the maladministration and the points made by the ombudsman, the conclusion needs to happen through political choice. That political choice is between either the Government sitting there or a Government who might replace them at some point this year. Surely the WASPI women in my constituency of West Dunbartonshire, and those in everyone’s constituencies, need political agreement—not obfuscation or an abdication responsibility, but a clear political choice.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree. The Government have said that they will respond without “undue delay”, and that they are considering the report in detail. Can the Minister tell the House this afternoon whether the Government will bring forward proposals for remedy, as the Work and Pensions Committee believes that they should, before the summer recess? We should set a clear timetable.

We need a scheme that is easy to administer. The ombudsman said that, in principle, redress should reflect the impact on each individual, but it recognised that the need to avoid delay, and the large numbers involved,

“may indicate the need for a more standardised approach”.

Jane Cowley, the WASPI campaign manager, told the Work and Pensions Committee that given the need for action

“within weeks rather than years”,

the scheme should be based on three principles: speed, simplicity and sensitivity. The evidence that has been gathered points to a rules-based approach to working out the compensation that should be paid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

My sense is that there is a need to strike a balance, as the PHSO says. A way forward is beginning to emerge from the work of the APPG and the Select Committee, and I will elaborate on that.

Since the PHSO published its report on 21 March, the APPG has sought to play its role, as part of Parliament, in finding a fair and just mechanism, as quickly as possible, as the PHSO asked Parliament to do. The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and we have subsequently met the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who is now back in his place. I thank him for the hearing he gave us.

Last Tuesday, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and I appeared before the Work and Pensions Committee —likewise, I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Ham and his colleagues for the fair and full reception they provided. We are holding our own evidence sessions with the various representative groups; the first three sessions took place on Monday and there are more to follow. This is a complicated matter. While the APPG is yet to reach a settled and final recommendation about the form a compensation mechanism should take, it is fair to say that ideas are fast evolving and are pointing in a direction.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the hon. Gentleman advise the House, as well as WASPI women in West Dunbartonshire and across the UK, on whether one of those recommendations will be for a ministerial apology, on behalf of the Department, for where we are now?

[Peter Aldous]

PHSO suggests an apology from the DWP should be encapsulated in what it comes up with as a way forward. The DWP’s own guidelines include an apology as well.

I will focus on the form of compensation redress, which is emerging in a little more detail. While the PHSO has suggested that compensation should be paid at level 4 on their scale, there is disquiet among those affected that that is too low and that level 6 should apply, in line with the APPG’s recommendations. The PHSO comments that a flat rate is easiest to implement but not perfect, and that there may well be a need for a balancing act, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) suggested in his intervention.

The PHSO also suggests that the National Audit Office may be able to provide guidance on how to structure a compensation scheme. The WASPI group has emphasised, as we have heard, the need for speed, simplicity and sensitivity, and it recommends that the DWP should bring forward proposals for a financial redress scheme to Parliament before the summer recess. It also proposes that higher payments should be targeted at those most impacted.

The Work and Pensions Committee is to be commended for getting out its recommendations in less than 10 days after its evidence session. It also asked the Government to bring forward proposals for the summer recess. It, too, proposed that payments should be based on the extent of change to an individual’s state pension age, and the notice of change that they received. It adds that there should be some flexibility for individuals to be able to make the case for a higher level of compensation based on experiencing direct financial loss.

Clear parameters as to the form that the compensation should take, I sense, are rapidly evolving. Parliament, in the past two months since the PHSO published its report, in its various different guises is playing its role to the full. I would suggest that now is the time for the Government to step up to the plate. A mechanism should be put in place before the summer recess. I acknowledge that the matter is complicated, and that there is a need for contemplation and reflection, but we should have in mind that the most notable achievement of this Government is that, under enormous pressure in a very short timescale, they put in place a furlough scheme that saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and got us through covid. There is no reason why the Government cannot move with such speed and alacrity again. I would add that failure to comply with the PHSO’s recommendations would be almost completely unprecedented over the 70 years that the ombudsman has existed and would drive a coach and horses through what is an integral part of our parliamentary system of democratic checks and balances. In conclusion, I support this motion.