Who are the Waspis and what happened to them?
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The Labour government is facing backlash after refusing to pay compensation to women who were affected by the rise in state pension age. The recommendation was put forward by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) after the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) said millions of women suffered financially as they were not given sufficient warning to prepare for the later retirement age.
Politics live: Follow latest updates. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he understood the concerns of Waspi women, but their demands were not affordable. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player. . Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall issued an apology for a 28-month delay in sending out letters to those born in the 1950s impacted by state pension changes, but said she does not believe paying a flat rate to women at a cost of up to £10.5bn would be a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers' money.
There were shouts of "shame" when Ms Kendall made the announcement in the Commons, with the government also facing a barrage of criticism from MPs, some of which from within the Labour Party. Who are the Waspi women?. In the mid-1990s, the government passed a law to raise the retirement age for women over a 10-year period to make it equal to men.
The coalition government under David Cameron and Nick Clegg then sped up the timetable as part of its cost-cutting measures. In 2011, a new Pensions Act was introduced that not only shortened the timetable to increase the women's pension age to 65 by two years but also raised the overall pension age to 66 by October 2020 - saving the government around £30bn.
