Waspi warns of political fallout from alienating older women
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Campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality is going ahead with a legal challenge against the government, and predicts those affected will unseat the Labour party at the next general election.
The group is seeking compensation, costing up to £10bn, for government maladministration of changes to women’s state pension age. Compensation was recommended by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman but refused by two subsequent work and pensions secretaries.
The campaigners are now launching a new judicial review claim, having threatened to do so in March. Waspi’s legal team has sent a judicial review pre-action protocol letter citing “multiple legal errors” in the government’s response to PHSO.
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.
Waspi connected 1950s-born women’s frustration over the lack of compensation to the recent election results. The group had produced a scorecard in March to show where parties stand on their issue.
The ruling Labour party suffered historic losses in last week’s local elections, while Reform UK saw huge gains, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats also up. Labour lost its hold over Wales to Plaid Cymru for the first time in over a century. Waspi claims that in 302 out of 650 constituencies – nearly half of seats in parliament – the number of Waspi women exceeds the sitting MP's majority. Of the 302, 142 are held by Labour, 97 by the Conservatives and 29 by the Liberal Democrats, according to Waspi. The group said about 1.7m affected women live in the 51 most marginal seats, where the MP's majority is under 1,000.
Waspi connected 1950s-born women’s frustration over the lack of compensation to the recent election results. The group had produced a scorecard in March to show where parties stand on their issue.
The ruling Labour party suffered historic losses in last week’s local elections, while Reform UK saw huge gains, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats also up. Labour lost its hold over Wales to Plaid Cymru for the first time in over a century. Waspi claims that in 302 out of 650 constituencies – nearly half of seats in parliament – the number of Waspi women exceeds the sitting MP's majority. Of the 302, 142 are held by Labour, 97 by the Conservatives and 29 by the Liberal Democrats, according to Waspi. The group said about 1.7m affected women live in the 51 most marginal seats, where the MP's majority is under 1,000.
In January, over 100 MPs, including 14 Labour MPs, had signed a letter to McFadden calling for compensation.
"The government has had every opportunity to do the right thing for Waspi women. Instead, they have made a political choice that risks alienating voters in hundreds of marginal seats across the country,” said Waspi chair Angela Madden.
“After losing nearly 1,500 seats in the recent local elections, the [Labour] party now has a clear choice: listen to Waspi women and compensate them fairly, or face the consequences at the next general election. We will not be ignored, and we will not give up this fight,” she said.
