Anger greets UK government decision not to compensate ‘Waspi women’
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Minister says flat-rate compensation scheme for women affected by rising state pension age would have cost taxpayer £10.5bn,. “Waspi women” affected by the rising state pension age will not get compensation, the government has announced, with the prime minister arguing it would be wrong to burden the taxpayer.
Keir Starmer was asked about the issue in Estonia, after work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall told MPs she was rejecting the parliamentary and health service ombudsman’s recommendation for compensation to be paid. The chair of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign, Angela Madden, responded with fury to the government’s decision.
“This is a bizarre and totally unjustified move which will leave everyone asking what the point of an ombudsman is if ministers can simply ignore their decisions. It feels like a decision that would make the likes of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump blush,” she said.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Kendall accepted the findings of the ombudsman, in a report earlier this year, that her department failed to communicate the change adequately. But she rejected its recommendation for a flat-rate compensation scheme, paying out £1,000 to £2,950 to the more than 3 million women affected.
