Waspi threatens fresh legal action
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Women Against State Pension Inequality is threatening the government with a further legal challenge, after the Department for Work and Pensions refused compensation to about 3.6m women a second time, going against a recommendation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Lawyers for the campaign group will write a letter before action to the government citing “multiple legal errors” over ministers’ refusal to compensate 1950s-born women for maladministration by the DWP, Waspi said on Wednesday.
The government will have 14 days to respond before potentially being taken to the High Court for a second judicial review, although Waspi said it has not made a final decision on legal action, in part because this will depend on the government’s response.
Lawyers for the campaign group will write a letter before action to the government citing “multiple legal errors” over ministers’ refusal to compensate 1950s-born women for maladministration by the DWP, Waspi said on Wednesday.
The government will have 14 days to respond before potentially being taken to the High Court for a second judicial review, although Waspi said it has not made a final decision on legal action, in part because this will depend on the government’s response.
Angela Madden, who chairs the campaign group, said: “The government has had the opportunity to do the right thing for Waspi women. Instead, they have made a political choice to ignore well established democratic processes, which is irrational, unfair and risks alienating even more voters.”
Madden said: “Women affected by the government’s failures have waited long enough. If ministers will not listen to the independent ombudsman, their own MPs and millions of people across the country, we will make them listen in court.”
A first judicial review was due last December but the parties settled out of court as work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden offered to ‘retake’ the decision on compensation, saying new evidence had come to light. In January, he then repeated his predecessor Liz Kendall’s 2024 refusal to pay compensation, despite acknowledging maladministration in the way women's rising state pension age was communicated.
A DWP spokesperson said: “The secretary of state set out the government’s position in his oral statement to parliament, including acceptance of maladministration and apology to the women affected. Our focus now is on delivering an action plan to implement lessons learned in how DWP communicates state pension matters going forward.”
In the 2024 election campaign, many Labour MPs, including current ministers, promised to support 1950s-born women but failed to do so once in office. However, others continue to back the group. Earlier this year, 101 MPs, including at least 14 Labour MPs, called on McFadden to compensate affected women as quickly as possible.
Waspi told its supporters: “We cannot understand why the government is so desperate to avoid taking responsibility for its maladministrative failures that it is willing to deny women’s lived experience, nor why individual ministers are taking positions that are the absolute opposite to those they took when in opposition.”
Madden said: “Women affected by the government’s failures have waited long enough. If ministers will not listen to the independent ombudsman, their own MPs and millions of people across the country, we will make them listen in court.”
A first judicial review was due last December but the parties settled out of court as work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden offered to ‘retake’ the decision on compensation, saying new evidence had come to light. In January, he then repeated his predecessor Liz Kendall’s 2024 refusal to pay compensation, despite acknowledging maladministration in the way women's rising state pension age was communicated.
A DWP spokesperson said: “The secretary of state set out the government’s position in his oral statement to parliament, including acceptance of maladministration and apology to the women affected. Our focus now is on delivering an action plan to implement lessons learned in how DWP communicates state pension matters going forward.”
In the 2024 election campaign, many Labour MPs, including current ministers, promised to support 1950s-born women but failed to do so once in office. However, others continue to back the group. Earlier this year, 101 MPs, including at least 14 Labour MPs, called on McFadden to compensate affected women as quickly as possible.
Waspi told its supporters: “We cannot understand why the government is so desperate to avoid taking responsibility for its maladministrative failures that it is willing to deny women’s lived experience, nor why individual ministers are taking positions that are the absolute opposite to those they took when in opposition.”
The government said women were aware of changes to their retirement age and that writing to them earlier would have made little difference. Waspi said the DWP based its refusal on a narrow set of data around awareness of state pension age changes.
Not all of DWP’s research came to the same conclusion. In 2007, with three years to go until SPA equalisation starting, the DWP found half of women whose state pension age had risen to between 60 and 65 still thought that it was 60. The department disowned its research during the ombudsman investigation, but PHSO said that at the relevant time, DWP considered it valid.
The government refusing to follow an ombudsman recommendation is unusual. Ministers have openly admitted that the price tag – up to roughly £10.5bn – is part of the reason for denying compensation. With further increases to the state pension age in the pipeline, they might also be anxious to avoid setting a precedent. Under current legislation, the state pension age is going up from 66 to 67 this year, and to 68 in the 2040s.
At a Work and Pensions Committee hearing on Wednesday, pensions minister Torsten Bell commented on the Waspi issue, seeking to put the blame on previous governments, in particular the 2010-15 coalition government.
“It's not just about how that decision is taken, it's about the length of notice period that was given for some of those changes,” he said. “There are big lessons from that. There are obviously lessons that we've said we need to learn about the communication of those state pension age increases.”
Not all of DWP’s research came to the same conclusion. In 2007, with three years to go until SPA equalisation starting, the DWP found half of women whose state pension age had risen to between 60 and 65 still thought that it was 60. The department disowned its research during the ombudsman investigation, but PHSO said that at the relevant time, DWP considered it valid.
The government refusing to follow an ombudsman recommendation is unusual. Ministers have openly admitted that the price tag – up to roughly £10.5bn – is part of the reason for denying compensation. With further increases to the state pension age in the pipeline, they might also be anxious to avoid setting a precedent. Under current legislation, the state pension age is going up from 66 to 67 this year, and to 68 in the 2040s.
At a Work and Pensions Committee hearing on Wednesday, pensions minister Torsten Bell commented on the Waspi issue, seeking to put the blame on previous governments, in particular the 2010-15 coalition government.
“It's not just about how that decision is taken, it's about the length of notice period that was given for some of those changes,” he said. “There are big lessons from that. There are obviously lessons that we've said we need to learn about the communication of those state pension age increases.”
DWP's relationship with PHSO still in focus
McFadden wrote to Work and Pensions Committee chair Debbie Abrahams on 6 March, reiterating the government’s reasons for refusing compensation to 1950s-born women, including the feasibility of compensating a large group not all of whom might have suffered financial detriment.
In addition, he claimed that the department co-operates well with PHSO, as Abrahams had queried this. In January, ombudsman Paula Sussex said the DWP had not sent regular updates on an ‘action plan’ to learn from the women's state pension age debacle and hinted at cultural issues around dealing with complaints in the DWP.
Bell told MPs the PHSO had seen a copy of the action plan: “I would have liked them to be clearer with this committee that that's what they've done, in some of the communications with you, but they did see a copy of that before Christmas.“
He said the plan was also sent to PHSO after McFadden had made his decision in January.
“We've had their comments and I'm aiming to publish that as soon as we can,“ he added.
The committee had questioned the department’s top civil servant Sir Peter Schofield about the action plan in January, along with probing him and his colleagues on the carer’s allowance scandal. A few weeks later, it was announced that in July, Sir Peter would step down from his post for personal reasons.
