AN SNP MP hit back after a BBC host said that Labour “haven't broken any promises” with their decision to reject an ombudsman’s recommendations and not compensate Waspi women.
Appearing on BBC Radio Scotland on Thursday morning, the SNP’s Dave Doogan responded by bringing up the “countless” images of Labour figures campaigning for compensation for Waspi women before they got into power.
Among numerous others, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was pictured alongside a Scottish Waspi campaigner in 2022 having signed a pledge backing “fair and fast compensation” for them.
In March, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman recommended paying some 3.8 million Waspi women – who were born in the 1950s and lost out due to poorly communicated state pension changes – between £1000 and £2950 each to compensate for maladministration.
On Tuesday, the Labour Government apologised for that maladministration, but declined to make any payments saying it could not afford to do so.
Speaking on the BBC on Thursday, SNP MP Doogan called for a Westminster vote on the decision.
“I think it's really important for constituents up and down these islands to understand where their MP stands on this issue because Waspi, perhaps unlike any other issue, has galvanised politicians from across the political spectrum, who see this as a really blaring injustice that has affected many 1950s-born women in a really punitive and deeply unfair way,” he said.
“I genuinely think that there are a lot of Labour MPs who are massively uncomfortable with the situation they’ve been placed in by the UK Government, and they'll need to try and get an opportunity to come down on one side of the Waspi fence or the other.”
The BBC Scotland host then said that because a pledge to Waspi women did not appear in Labour’s 2024 General Election manifesto, “they haven't broken any promises on this one”.
Responding, Doogan said: “It does render them peak sleekit, doesn't it, to do that? I mean, you can't line up with countless Waspi women holding their placards saying that you've got their backs, and then when you get into power and into a position where you can help them, you say, ‘oh well, it's unaffordable, we can't do that’.
“People expect higher standards of legitimacy and honesty from the politicians and Labour have let people down badly on that front.”
Asked if he supported compensation, Doogan said he did and that it was “convention and for very good reason that you accede to the rulings” of an ombudsman, highlighting that the PHSO had called for compensation for maladministration.
The BBC host then asked if the Scottish Government couldn’t step in to pay compensation to Waspi women north of the Border to make up for Westminster’s failures.
There are questions around the legality of such a move. The SNP say the Scotland Act 2016, which makes clear that any intervention on pensions is wholly reserved, blocks them from doing so.
However, the UK Government has said that Holyrood can create discretionary payments which would compensate the Waspi women in Scotland.
Responding, Doogan told the BBC: “How many times are we going to expect an SNP Scottish Government to pick up the financial collateral of catastrophic decisions made in Westminster that affect the people of Scotland negatively, time after time.
“There's only so many hundreds of millions of pounds the Scottish Government can find every year to compensate communities in Scotland from the disastrous decisions made in Westminster to us, not by us.”
