Keir Starmer has been forced to defend his government’s U-turn on pledges to compensate the Waspi women who lost out because of changes in their pension arrangements.
Less than 24 hours after workmand pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced that the government would not be sticking to Labour’s pre-election pledge, the issue erupted in the final PMQs of 2024.
Leading the criticism was Tory leader Kemi Badenoch who pointed out that deputy prime minister Angela Rayner had been one of the ones pledging to ensure Waspi women were compensated.
Linking it to the decision to end winter fuel payments, Ms Badenoch said Sir Keir “had broken the trust with pensioners”.
In March, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) recommended the Government pay compensation to women born in the 1950s whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men.
The watchdog said the women should be paid up to £2,950 each, a package with a potential total cost of £10.5 billion to the public purse, as poor communication meant they had lost out on the change to plan their retirement finances.
Images of chancellor Rachel Reeves, home secretary Yvette Cooper, Ms Kendall and other ministers making the same promise have been circulating around social media.
The “betrayal” has been linked to a series of other U-turns over abolishing the two child benefit cap, scrapping tuition fees, protecting farmers, not raising national insurance and being pro-business among others.
Veeteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said: “The Waspi women fought one of the sustained and passionate campaigns for justice that I can remember. We did promise them that we would give them justice.
“Does the prime minister really understand how let down Waspi women feel today?”
Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) asked Sir Keir: “In 2022 the Prime Minister supported calls for fair and fast compensation for 1950s women impacted by the changes to the state pension. And yet just yesterday his Government rejected those same calls out of hand. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he promised to lead a Government of change?”
Sir Keir Starmer said the taxpayer cannot afford the £10 billion compensation bill for Waspi women as research showed the majority of them already knew about the changes.
The Prime Minister acknowledged it was a “serious and complex” issue and branded the delay in letters being sent “unacceptable”, when asked about it during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday lunchtime.
Sir Keir said: “This is a serious issue. Between 2005 and 2007 there was, I think, a 28-month delay in letters to women born in the 1950s about changes to pension age. That was unacceptable and it was right that the Government apologised for that.
“In 2011 the former chancellor George Osborne accelerated those changes with very little notice, that equally was unacceptable and Labour opposed it at the time. It is a serious issue, it is a complex issue, the research shows, as he knows, that 90% of those impacted knew about the changes that were taking place.
“And I’m afraid to say that taxpayers simply can’t afford the tens of billions of pounds in compensation when the evidence shows that 90% of those impacted did know about it, that’s because of the state of our economy.”