Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

I begin by commending my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), not only for securing this debate on the ombudsman’s report, but for her continued determination in representing the WASPI women and seeking the justice that they have been so cruelly denied by their own Government.

Those include women such as Mary Barclay from Bellshill, who came to my advice surgery just on Friday to ask me to come to this House today and ask this Government to do the right thing by her and the thousands of other women who have had the rug pulled out from underneath them. She also spoke to me about some of the 280,000 women who have died during this fight for justice and how, along with thousands across my Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill constituency, she will continue to fight for what they are entitled to. I put on record my thanks to Mary for the time she spent informing me of the real and deep impact that this issue has had on her in later life.

Across Scotland, it is estimated that almost 356,000 women were impacted by the WASPI pension scandal. Many of the women affected were already in ill health. Others had taken early retirement and were planning to get by until the age of 60, when they thought they would receive their state pension. However, Westminster Tories had a different idea. The UK Government instead invented reasons for countless delays in the hopes that the WASPI women would simply go away, but I think they have proven that they will not go away—no chance. Their campaign for justice continues.

I return to that figure of some 280,000 women who have passed away without seeing the justice that was owed to them. As many as 40,000 woman are dying every year without getting any form of compensation. That is outrageous and wilful neglect of the duty of any Government. It is shameful. It is a betrayal of the most callous kind of those impacted by the UK Government’s maladministration.

The SNP welcomes the findings of the PHSO’s report, and it is clear that the Westminster Government must now take responsibility for the hardships that they have caused women born in the 1950s and make urgent amends for mistakes made. WASPI women have been struggling for years now with this injustice, and just about every other whim and decision that emanates from this place has also taken its toll. We have heard about the Horizon scandal and the infected blood scandal, but there is also the cut to pension credit for mixed-age couples, the freezing of the hard-earned state pensions of pensioners living overseas, and this Government’s scrapping of free TV licences for the over-75s. All those decisions impact on WASPI women. On top of the self-inflicted cost of living crisis, it is just becoming too much for some of them.

The UK Government must not only apologise for the harms caused by their clear and obvious maladministration, but act urgently to deliver the justice and the compensation that these women so richly deserve. The report is clear and damning. It has made a finding of failings by the DWP in this case and has ruled that the women affected are owed compensation. The PHSO’s chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath said:

“DWP has clearly indicated that it will refuse to comply.”

That is outrageous. She continued:

“This is unacceptable. The Department must do the right thing and it must be held to account for failure to do so.”

To this very day the DWP has not acknowledged its failings. It has also failed to offer any apology or explanation, and has indicated that it will not compensate women affected by its failure.

The SNP here in Westminster and in government in Holyrood has always supported and will continue to support the WASPI women and their valiant efforts, yet many here in Westminster who were previously very vocal in supporting the WASPI women have now fallen eerily silent. The very same can be said for prominent Tory and Labour figures up the road in Holyrood as well. On 1 May the Scottish Parliament moved a motion on women’s state pension compensation that

“agrees that the UK Government must now urgently deliver on the ombudsman’s recommendations to pay compensation in full to those women without delay”.

That motion passed in the Scottish Parliament with votes from the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Greens and the Alba party. The Tories and the Labour party shamefully abstained on that vote, and that speaks volumes. It certainly speaks a lot more than the silence that comes from their Benches. I have to say that, if the WASPI women are pinning their hopes on an incoming Labour Administration, they probably need to prepare themselves for yet more despair.

Why is that? They need only familiarise themselves with the lengths that the Labour administration in North Lanarkshire Council went to in order to avoid paying out on equal pay claims owed to women over many years—spending millions upon millions of pounds on legal fees in the process of fighting those justified claims, and then losing. The same happened, as we have heard, in Labour-run Glasgow City Council. Those two parties, the Tories and Labour, are not interested in equality for women; the evidence is before us, friends, so forgive me if I have no faith whatsoever in the change that the Labour party is purporting to offer.

Labour could, of course, surprise us; it could support the State Pension Age (Compensation) Bill in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), of which I am a co-sponsor. The UK Government and the Labour party could and should back his Bill and immediately set up a compensation scheme for all the women affected. We know that they will not, but we are asking them here today and reinforcing those calls.

It is clear that only a strong SNP voice in Holyrood and here in Westminster can hold this or any UK Government to account, whether it be a Tory or a Labour- led Government.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

We have heard demands that the Secretary of State here in Westminster should apologise, and quite clearly he should, but my hon. Friend will remember that 10 years ago, almost to the day, a very senior former Labour Prime Minister was doing the rounds in Scotland, speaking at meetings of middle-aged and elderly people, promising them categorically that their pensions were safe with any United Kingdom Government. Does my hon. Friend believe that it is now time that an apology came from that politician for the way that he deceived and misled millions of people in Scotland?

[Steven Bonnar]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That was just one of the mistruths we were told during that campaign—we were also told that we would maintain our place in the European Union. The WASPI women have been completely shafted, for want of a better word, by the politicians who were charged with delivering justice for them.

The SNP and the Scottish Government in Holyrood stand ready to engage with the Department for Work and Pensions when the UK Government finally agree to compensate the WASPI women. There is still hope that this Government will agree to do so, because justice should be done. After years of promises made by Tory and Labour MPs and MSPs, both parties are now refusing to accept the report’s recommendation to compensate fully the women who have been impacted.

It is time for the Tory and Labour parties to stop dithering and to put the funding in place so that these women can get the justice they deserve before it is too late. It should also be crystal clear once again—this is not an extreme proposition and it should not be seen as such—that the only way to protect Scotland’s pensioners from the whims of Westminster Governments and to ensure dignity and fairness in retirement is for Scotland to have the full powers of its independence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for securing this debate, and for her unflinching commitment and support for WASPI women everywhere. This has been an important issue for me for a number of years. In fact, it is so important to me that I chose to raise it as a matter of urgency during my maiden speech in this Chamber in 2020, when I highlighted the scandalous situation experienced by these women.

There were an estimated 3.8 million WASPI women, although 280,000 have died since the start of the campaign, including my constituents Margaret Meikle and Morag Syne. Those women died without receiving the compensation, apology or justice that they rightly deserved. There are about 6,800 WASPI women in Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock. To some people, they are just numbers; to me, every single one of them is an individual—a daughter and possibly a mother, a grandmother, a wife, a sister, an auntie, a carer and a friend. They are important. They matter. They have all had their hopes, expectations and aspirations of retiring at 60 with a reasonable pension crushed by a lack of notice of a change to their pension age by the Government. Each and every one of them deserved to be treated properly, and the grave injustice they have suffered should be put right by the Government.

Since my first contact with a WASPI constituent nine years ago, many have written to me and met me, expressing their frustration, dealing with burnout, caring for elderly relatives and missing out on time with partners, children and grandchildren, all in the context of a cost of living crisis. Many have also commented on the lack of pension income and having to use savings to survive, preventing them from buying clothes and presents for their grandchildren and seriously restricting any discretionary spending that would have been spent in the local economy. Above all, they are left with an overwhelming sense of injustice at not being informed of changes to their state pension age, which has left them understandably angry and resentful. The lack of information and the denial of choice by the Government has resulted in a reduced quality of life, serious financial losses, and sustained damage to their sense of worth, mental health and wellbeing.

[Peter Grant]

My hon. Friend mentions the enormous toll on the mental health and wellbeing of so many of these women. Does he agree that that damage has been deliberately made worse by the fact that they, almost alone of the millions of people who have suffered from grave injustices and miscarriages of justice, have had a Government who claim to be looking after them publicly say, “We will ignore the results of an independent inquiry and deny the fact that any injustice has been carried out against them”?

[Allan Dorans]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

How much might it cost to properly compensate the WASPI women? In March, The Times estimated that to pay them the ombudsman’s paltry offer of between £1,000 and £2,850 would cost between £3.5 billion and £10 billion. The WASPI campaign is calling for about three times as much—£10,000—which would put the cost to the public purse at about £36 billion. It may be slightly more or slightly less, but by not paying the WASPI women the pensions they rightly deserve to date, the Government have already saved £181.4 billion. In only the last eight months of 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics, UK Government total expenditure was £755 billion. The compensation demanded by the WASPI women is insignificant in that context.

The failed covid test and trace system in England cost £37 billion, paid to former TalkTalk chief executive—and wife of a Conservative Member—Dido Harding for no reason whatsoever. That amount alone would have paid full compensation to all the WASPI women to date.

As many as 3.8 million women were given the news that their state pension age was to increase from 60 to 66 just as they were about to retire, so too late for them to do any proper financial planning. Many were already in ill health or worse, and others had taken early retirement with a plan to get by until age 60, when they thought they would receive their state pension and look forward to a reasonably comfortable retirement.

This is a long tale of suffering, misery and injustice not only for the women affected, but endured by their immediate and extended families. It has been allowed to go on for far too long. It needs to be concluded without further delay. I therefore call on the Government to apologise unreservedly and to act to compensate women affected by the worst pension scandal in history. They must do so immediately before even more WASPI women die without having received an apology, compensation or justice. I urge the DWP to bring proposals to Parliament for a financial redress scheme for all Members to debate and vote on, including a mechanism for MPs to put forward alternatives before the summer recess. In those proposals, the Government should set out eligibility for the compensation scheme, the amounts of compensation to be paid, the administration of the scheme and the timeframe for compensation to be paid.

WASPI women everywhere have campaigned to right this injustice, but may I pay tribute to the tireless work of Frances Brown and Lynn Paterson, the local WASPI co-ordinators from my area, who have given their best and their lives to obtain compensation for all the other WASPI women in our area and across the country? I thank them for their support.