Waspi women feel “betrayed” by Labour MPs for pledging “empty” words of support for the campaign, after the party failed to back calls for them to be given compensation.
As part of a backbench business debate on the PHSO’s recent report on state pension age changes, Patricia Gibson, MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, said Waspi women felt “abandoned” by the Labour party for not showing their support in light of the report’s findings.
The ombudsman ruled that Waspi women were owed compensation after it said the DWP’s handling of the pension changes meant some women lost opportunities to make informed decisions about their finances and also diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control.
She said: “The Waspi women I have spoken to feel particularly betrayed by Labour MPs and MSPs who have spent the last umpteen years posing for photographs, smiling broadly pledging what turned out to be empty words of support.
“Only to abandon them at the very moment they are vindicated by the ombudsman.”
Gibson believed the sums of compensation the PHSO recommended in its report to be given to Waspi women were “simply too low”.
“It’s time to get real and perhaps the government could examine the private member’s bill brought by my colleague and go from there. But all we have is silence from both the government and the Labour opposition” she added.
MP Alan Brown called on the government to give compensation payouts of £10,000 or more to Waspi women.
Gibson said there were “no more hiding places” and that it was time for “swift” compensation to be delivered.
“It is time to pay up, it is time to deliver. The minister and the Labour leadership must surely know by now these women are not going away,” she added.
Gibson called on the minister for work and pensions, Mel Stride to set out a timeframe for when the government will bring forward redress proposals.
As part of the debate, Andrew Selous MP for South West Bedfordshire, said there needed to be honesty from the government about where the money for compensation would come as the amount it will have to pay out will be a “large sum”.
“We need honesty about the government’s finances…because if we are going to spend billions on this [Waspi compensation], the government needs to be honest about what it won’t be able to spend money on - things that Waspi women may very well want. Or what other services it will need to cut or taxes it will need to raise,” he added.
Selous said the government needed to look at a dedicated fund in the Treasury reserves for contingencies to fund the compensation.
He highlighted: “This reserve will be a certain sum, it may not be large enough to spend money on every cause in the way that we would like.
