An estimated 3.8 million women across Great Britain missed out on State Pension payments due to a change in retirement age. Between April 2010 and November 2018, it rose from 60 to 65 for women, and in October 2020 it increased to 66 for both men and women.
In July 2021, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to communicate the changes to women born in the 1950s with enough urgency, finding it guilty of maladministration, and is currently investigating the harm caused. However, DWP will not take any action until the investigation is complete as it is bound by the judiciary process.
However, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi recently asked DWP if it had “made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing an alternative disputes resolution process for people affected by changes in State Pension age for women” - often referred to as the WASPI women [Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign].
In a written response earlier this week, DWP Pensions Minister Laura Trott MP said: “The equalisation of State Pension age has been the policy of successive governments dating back to 1995.
“The Ombudsman’s investigation is ongoing and section 7(2) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 states that Ombudsman investigations ‘shall be conducted in private’.
“This is a multi-staged process, and the Ombudsman has not given his final findings on the investigation. We are cooperating with the Ombudsman’s investigation.”
In recent months, several MPs have called for action to be taken before the Ombudsman publishes its final findings, including SNP’s Patricia Gibson. Last month, the North Ayrshire and Arran MP urged the UK Government to work with the WASPI women once the Ombudsman investigation is completed. She paid tribute to the “dogged determination” of women born in the 1950s who continue to “campaign against the injustice they have suffered” due to changes made to the State Pension age.
Ms Gibson made the comments during a cross-party debate in March on ‘support for women in poverty’ which was held following an application from DUP MP Jim Shannon to the Backbench Business Committee.
At the time she said: “We cannot talk about women in poverty without acknowledging the great injustice inflicted on women born in the 1950s, who were robbed of their pensions and had their retirement plans thrown into chaos when the retirement age was raised with little or no notice, depriving them of tens of thousands of pounds of their rightful pensions.
"I pay tribute to the dogged determination of the WASPI women to campaign against the injustice they have suffered.
“As a result of that injustice, many have been thrown into poverty after a lifetime of low pay. Many have faced financial ruin, and, worse, many have died due to ill health without ever receiving their rightful pension.”
She continued: “While we are debating women in poverty, it has to be said that there is a widespread view that the way in which those women have been cruelly treated would never have happened to men.
“The truth is that those women were seen as an easy target for a Government wishing to cut spending, which is shameful.
“The fact that a whole generation of women had their retirement age increased with little or no notice is beyond shocking. Alongside that came poverty, indignity and hardship, which those women will not easily forgive. It would never have happened to a whole generation of men.”
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