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Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall is coming under further pressure over her refusal to award compensation for her department’s maladministration to 1950s-born women, as the chair of the Work and Pensions Committee demands to know which compensation schemes were considered before the decision.
Debbie Abrahams MP wrote to Kendall on Wednesday. She said: “I would be grateful if you could write with details of the compensation schemes you considered before making your statement in December and why particular schemes were not felt to be feasible or appropriate.”
Her letter comes after campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality sent a letter before action to the minister late last month, and after a private member’s bill on compensation was introduced to parliament in January.
In March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman recommended the government should compensate women affected by poor communication about a rise in their state pension age with £1,000 to £2,950 each. Last December, Kendall issued a statement saying no compensation would be paid as this would be unfair to taxpayers, claiming women were aware of the rise in state pension age.
In January, the Work and Pensions Committee, as part of its pensioner poverty inquiry, heard evidence on the issue from Waspi and the deputy PHSO. Karl Bannister told MPs that while any recommendation to compensate people would normally be followed by discussions on what is feasible, this never happened in the case of women’s state pensions.
During the session, Bannister also said compensation did not necessarily need to be as expensive as suggested by the DWP. On 26 February, he set out in writing to the committee what a compensation scheme could involve, for example asking women to evidence that they did not know about the changes – it is unclear how – or paying a flat rate. Kendall, in her statement rejecting compensation, had said it would be both too costly for taxpayers and involve too high an administrative burden if cases had to be assessed individually.
Abrahams is now probing how seriously the DWP examined different options to comply with the ombudsman’s recommendation.
