Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Debate between Peter Aldous and Martin Docherty-Hughes

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.