The dispute between the government and 1950s-born women has taken a new turn as the work and pensions secretary has said the government will retake a decision whether or not to award compensation to 3.6m women ahead of a court hearing, as new evidence has come to light.

Pat McFadden made a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, saying a survey from 2007 was not shown to his predecessor Liz Kendall before, a year ago, she did not follow an ombudsman recommendation to pay compensation for the department’s maladministration. 

The survey that is now being looked at is a DWP evaluation of the effectiveness of automatic pension forecast letters which was not drawn to Kendall's attention “because its potential relevance to the making of her decision was not evident at the time”, McFadden said.

He stressed that “retaking this decision should not be taken as an indication that government will necessarily decide that they should award financial redress”. 

The minister's statement to the Commons was welcomed by the campaign group that is taking the DWP to court. Angela Madden, who chairs Women Against State Pension Inequality, said: “For 10 years we have been fighting for compensation. The government has fought us tooth and nail every step of the way. Today’s announcement is a major step forward. We are now seeking legal advice as to what this means for our judicial review.”  

The case, if won, would mean the government would have to review its decision, which it is now doing anyway.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, in a six-year investigation, had concluded that women should have received letters from the government 28 months earlier than they did to alert them of an upcoming gradual increase in state pension age from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2018. PHSO recommended compensating women to level 4 of its injustice scale, at the time being £1,000 to £2,950. 

In rejecting compensation, the Department for Work and Pensions claimed, among others, that sending letters earlier would have made no difference, saying “evidence showed only one in four people remember receiving and reading letters that they weren’t expecting”.  

Though McFadden did not reveal which precise survey he meant, a DWP research report published in 2006 entitled, ‘Evaluation of Automatic State Pension Forecasts for the over-50s' debunks the government’s claim that most people do not recall unsolicited mail. The survey found recall of automatic pension forecasts was at 51% when unprompted and 81% when prompted – especially among women (84%), who were also more likely to have read some or all of the forecast mailing consisting of a letter and a leaflet (58%). Only 23% of those surveyed did not recall receiving the letter, according to this research.  

It also shows 57% of women aged 50-59 were planning to retire between age 56 and 60 – potentially indicating a lack of awareness that their state pension age was set to rise from 2010 onwards, which had been legislated for in 1995.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Mark Garnier said: “The Waspi women are rightly angry with this government. In opposition, shadow ministers and Labour MPs stood alongside these women, as the Secretary of State did, campaigning for ‘a better deal for Waspi women’.”  

He queried whether any action plan to “learn lessons” has been created as promised by the DWP, saying that “to my knowledge, nothing has been released to that effect". 

The support many MPs now in government lent to Waspi in the run-up to the general election stands in contrast to the government’s decision. It will have left a bitter taste for many older women – who may well be turning out at May’s local elections to express their frustration. The government is already under pressure to appease voters as well as its own MPs, fearing the rise of Reform UK.

While it would be politically easier, asking taxpayers to finance up to £10.6bn could be a difficult message as the chancellor is expected to raise taxes this month. However, despite repeatedly pointing to the fiscal situation, the government found £11.8bn to compensate infected blood victims last year, as well as handing over a £1.5bn investment reserve to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.