Campaigners supporting millions of women impacted by an increase in state pension have hit back at Sir Keir Starmer’s claim that 90 per cent of them were aware of the changes.
Leaders of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) group say the fight will continue for the 3.6 million women born in the 1950s who they say were not properly informed of the rise in state pension age to bring them into line with men.
This week, the Labour government rejected providing compensation, despite a Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) recommendation that affected women should get typically £1,000 to £2,950 each.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir Starmer said taxpayers could not afford the £10.5 billion compensation package and would not rise to calls for a vote on the decision as he came under fire in the Commons.
He also repeated a claim by his pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, and chancellor, Rachel Reeves, that around 90 per cent of women did know that the changes to pensions were coming.
But speaking to The Independent, the Waspi campaign’s communication director, Debbie de Spon, said the 90 per cent claim “simply isn’t true”, while adding that there was now “raw fury” among members.
Ms de Spon said: “One of the reasons that Liz Kendall has used… she claimed that 90 per cent of women did know, which simply isn’t true.”
“And if you read the ombudsman’s report properly, you will see that that isn’t true. What the ombudsman took out of the research is that three out of five women didn’t know their state pension age was increasing.”
“She’s just using one number out from a cluster of numbers. She’s clung on to that because it’s the highest number. But it doesn’t represent the truth.
“We will be taking legal advice about that because it doesn’t make sense to us.”
Ms de Spon added there was “raw fury” among the “devastated” campaigners after the announcement which came as a “shock and a huge disappointment”.
She said: “There’s raw fury [on Facebook] understandably. As a campaign we are picking ourselves up and facing this head on. We’ve got to look at what Liz Kendall has said and we’ve got to approach it in the appropriate manner.
Questioning whether the government’s refusal of the ombudsman ruling is democratic, Ms de Spon said: “If there’s no mechanism for people to complain and to get true justice, well, is that a democracy?”
“There’s a whole constitutional issue here, apart from just the fact that 3.6 million Waspi women are feeling extremely angry this morning.
“It’s a far, far deeper thing. If we don’t all watch out, what’s next? If you tolerate this then your children will be next, as they say.”
