Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation

Torsten Bell Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mr Stringer, and I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for leading today’s debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. I look forward to hearing her closing remarks.

Questions about when each of us can draw our pension are hugely important and so are related questions about how we spend our latter years, including when we can retire. Therefore, it not surprising that this petition has garnered so many signatures, nor that this debate has brought so many spectators and hon. Members to Westminster Hall today. Of course, none of us needs to come here to have those conversations. We have them every week precisely because they matter so much.

I have declared an interest on this issue before: my aunt in Aberystwyth sees herself as a WASPI woman. Just two weeks ago, I met Georgina Kettleborough at Burlais primary school. She has supported children for over three decades in the canteen and throughout the school and is about to retire at the age of 69. I hope we can all join in congratulating her on that milestone, as we join my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) in congratulating his mother on her birthday.

Georgina’s retirement comes several years after she was entitled to her state pension because working in the school is such a big part of her life. People will not be surprised to know, however, that she would have preferred to receive her pension earlier. Everyone will understand that. Who would not feel that way—especially women from a generation that suffered such significant disadvantage in the labour market and elsewhere, as the hon. Members for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) and for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) spelled out?

However, the ombudsman did not investigate the decision of the Conservative Government to increase the state pension age for women in 1995 or that of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition Government to accelerate those increases in 2011. I make that point because several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton and Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), have referred to the desirability of those original decisions. That is not to downplay the significance of those decisions —far from it. SPA equalisation was a very large and important change, and the acceleration was opposed by my party for the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson). But the ombudsman did not investigate the legality or merits of those decisions. Instead—I should note that the WASPI campaign is clear on this point—the sole focus was on how those changes were communicated by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The ombudsman looked at six cases that it said reflected the range of issues and the injustices raised. It concluded that the DWP provided adequate and accurate information on changes to the state pension age between 1995 and 2004. However, it also found that decisions made between 2005 and 2007 led to a 28-month delay in sending out letters to women born in the 1950s. The ombudsman says that those delays were maladministration, as almost every hon. Member who spoke today reiterated.

We respect the work of the ombudsman, its independence and the work it does, a point many hon. Members have raised. In this case, we agree that the letters should have been sent sooner. We have apologised and we will learn the lessons. However, as everyone in this room is well aware, we do not agree with the ombudsman’s approach to injustice or remedy. Many hon. Members have asked whether that invalidates the role of the ombudsman, including my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey). My strong view is that it does not. It is, rightly, rare, but not unprecedented, for a Government to take that view.

Two important considerations when making that decision were that the evidence shows that sending people unsolicited letters can be ineffective, which is why it is part of a wider communication campaign on every issue where it is used today, and that the majority of 1950s-born women were aware of the fact that the state pension age was changing, if not of their specific state pension age. The ombudsman assumed that sending letters earlier would have changed what women knew and how they acted.

[Seamus Logan]

Can the Minister explain his assertion that the majority of women were aware of these changes?

[Torsten Bell]

I will come to exactly that point shortly.

The 2014 research was not properly considered by the ombudsman. The same research is now the subject of live litigation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) noted. In addition, there was considerable awareness that the state pension age was increasing. Research from 2004 used by the ombudsman shows that 73% of people then aged 45 to 54 were aware that the state pension age was going up. Further research from 2006 reinforced that finding and was given to and used by the ombudsman. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) focused on the widely used 43% figure, but that figure refers to all women, including some aged 16 at the time of the survey, not just those who were affected by the state pension age changes.

[Christine Jardine]

I take on board what the Minister says about the research, but the fact that 73% of people knew that there were would be changes to the pension age does not tell us that 73% of women, or any percentage, knew that it would affect them. That is not what the evidence tells us.

[Torsten Bell]

The fact that people were widely aware that the state pension age was rising is indicative that it was not news to most people, even if they had not got the details on their specific circumstances. The 2006 research is now also the subject of live litigation, so I will resist the temptation to dive into the details, beyond directly addressing the point raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on the sample sized used in that survey. Returning to my old expertise in this area, the confidence intervals provided in that survey are certainly small enough to make it clear that a clear majority were aware that the state pension age was changing, so I do not think it is right to cast aspersions on that survey.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

One of the datasets that the Government rely on to make their assertions, specifically the 90% figure, actually includes women who were not born in the 1950s. Can the Minister give us an exact figure as to how many women in that 90% category responded to the survey?

[Torsten Bell]

The 90% figure refers to the age group that best overlaps with women born in the 1950s, so that is the best available figure from that survey.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Torsten Bell]

I will make some progress because I have given the best answer that I can to my hon. Friend’s question.

The ombudsman is clear that redress and compensation should normally reflect individual impact, but it also acknowledges the challenges of assessing the individual circumstances of 3.5 million women, as recognised by the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) a few moments ago. It took the ombudsman nearly six years to look at just six cases; doing so for millions would take years and thousands of DWP staff.

In answer my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), we considered a range of compensation options for women who lost opportunities as a result of the delay in sending letters. For example, we considered rules-based schemes, such as that which the Work and Pensions Committee suggested, and we also considered the possibility of paying limited compensation to a smaller group of women—for example, those on pension credit, as suggested by the hon. Member for Eastleigh.

However, many of those schemes would mean compensating women who were aware that the state pension age was increasing. Payments would not relate directly to the injustice in question but to benefit entitlement or the timeline for the policy change. Paying a flat rate to all 3.5 million women, regardless of whether they suffered injustice, would be neither fair nor proportionate. It would also not be affordable, as such compensation schemes would cost up to £10.5 billion. To directly address the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), the Government’s decision was not driven purely by cost.

[Andy McDonald]

The Minister has listed a whole host of alternatives, but is it fair to ignore the ombudsman’s clear conclusion that compensation ought to be paid? Is it fair to do nothing?

[Torsten Bell]

The Government have not ignored the ombudsman’s report or its judgment. We have just come to a different conclusion for the detailed reasons—[Interruption.] I appreciate that I am not going to persuade many Members in the Chamber for the very reason that they have chosen to come today, but on the direct question asked by my hon. Friend, the Government did not ignore the ombudsman’s report. We have come to a different view for the reasons that I have set out, on the basis of the research that I have mentioned.

I have set out the grounds for the Government’s decision. I appreciate that none of that is likely to change the minds of many Members here, or of the campaigners whose tenacity no one disputes, and to which the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) paid tribute. I fully recognise the challenges that this cohort of women have faced: working hard in sexist workplaces and often balancing that with raising a family. We have a responsibility to listen to their concerns. That is why my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), was the first Minister in eight years to meet the WASPI campaign.

[Steve Darling]

Has the Minister had a conversation with the ombudsman on what a just compensation system would look like?

[Torsten Bell]

My predecessor, who I just mentioned, did meet the ombudsman prior to the decision being announced by the Government. Parliament has been very engaged in this issue, as demonstrated today and in January’s debate led by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). The Government have made their decision and it is right that hon. Members hold us accountable for it, as they have done powerfully today.

[Jim Shannon]

The judicial review is pending. It is like the sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the Government. Does the Minister fear the judicial review that will, perhaps, force the Government to give WASPI women the compensation and justice they deserve?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I suspect that was a statement rather than a question. He knows that the Government will not comment on a live litigation. In answer to questions asked by other Members, I will, of course, be happy to meet with the chairs of the APPG, subject to the constraints of that live legal case. As a Department, we must and will learn the lessons from this case.

[Christine Jardine]

The Minister says that the Department will learn the lessons of this case. Does he accept that the whole point of this debate was not, as he said, to change the minds of Members who have spoken or the women who have come to watch the debate, but to change the mind of the Government? That is the lesson we would like him to learn.

[Torsten Bell]

I fully understand the motivation of those who have come here today. Members are not just keeping their constituents happy in making their cases, but I have set out why the Government have come to a different view. That is the nature of a Government making a decision and then rightly being held to account for it. That is what hon. Members have done today and what I have endeavoured to engage in, which I think is the right way forward.