Sir Keir Starmer has defended a decision not to compensate women affected by changes to their retirement age – saying doing so would “burden” the taxpayer.
The prime minister said he understood the concerns of the Women Against State Pension Inequality – often known as Waspi women – but their demands were not affordable.
He was speaking after Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall issued an apology for a 28-month delay in sending out letters to those born in the 1950s impacted by state pension changes.
However, she said she doesn’t accept that compensation should be paid.
Follow politics latest: Reaction to Waspi decision
Ms Kendall said the “great majority of women knew the state pension age was increasing” and that a state-funded pay-out wouldn’t be “fair or value for taxpayers’ money'”.
The announcement was branded a “day of shame” by the Liberal Democrats, who accused the Labour government of “turning its back on millions of pension-age women who were wronged”.
In the mid-1990s, the government passed a law to raise the retirement age for women over a 10-year period to make it equal with men.
The coalition government then sped up the timetable as part of its cost-cutting measures.
The Waspi group say millions suffered financially as they were not given sufficient warning to prepare for the later retirement age.
Earlier this year, an investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) found that thousands of women may have been adversely impacted by failures to adequately inform people of the change.
The watchdog suggested that women should receive compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 – but the findings were not legally binding.
Read More:
What is a Waspi woman and what happened to them?
Ms Kendall said paying that would have cost up to £10.5 billion, which is not “fair or proportionate”.
She also said she did not agree that sending letters earlier would have made a difference, saying research given to the Ombudsman showed “only around a quarter of people who are sent unsolicited letters actually remember receiving them or reading them“.
However she did accept there was maladministration in communicating the changes and vowed to “learn all the lessons” so it did not happen again.
Speaking later to journalists, Ms Kendall said “real and concrete actions” were coming out of the report, including a “detailed action plan to make sure those sorts of delays never happen again”.
Speaking to reporters after the announcement, Sir Keir said: “I do understand, of course, the concern of the Waspi women. But also I have to take into account whether it’s right at the moment to impose a further burden on the taxpayer, which is what it would be.”
The Waspi campaign group hit out at the decision on X, reminding Ms Kendall that she had previously called for a “fair solution for all affected”.
Angela Madden, chairwoman of Waspi, said refusing to compensate them was a “bizarre and totally unjustified move”.
She added: “An overwhelming majority of MPs back Waspi’s calls for fair compensation and all options remain on the table. Parliament must now seek an alternative mechanism to force this issue on to the order paper so justice can be done.”
This may be as big a political blunder as chancellor’s winter fuel cut
When Liz Kendall declared in the Commons there’ll be no compensation for the so-called WASPI women, there were shouts of “shame!” from MPs.
And no wonder. Could this be as big a political blunder as Rachel Reeves axing winter fuel payments for pensioners? Potentially, yes, given the furious backlash already.
Yes, compensation was promised by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell in the run-up to the December 2019 general election.
Mr McDonnell promised a £58 billion compensation scheme designed to end a “historic injustice” and said a “debt of honour” was owed to women born in the 1950s.
And yes, Sir Keir Starmer fought this year’s election as a changed Labour Party. And no, there was no repeat of the Corbyn-McDonnell pledge in this year’s election manifesto.
But as recently as 2022 the prime minister told a caller in a radio phone-in: “This is a real injustice. We need to something about it.”
In 2019, when she was in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, Angela Rayner said the Tory government “stole this money” from women born in the 1950s and Labour would “right that injustice”.
But not only that, Liz Kendall herself attended a WASPI campaign event in 2019 and said: “This injustice can’t go on. I have been a longstanding supporter of the WASPI campaign…”
No surprise then, that many of Labour’s newly-elected MPs now feel betrayed. “It feels a bit like we assembled this enormous coalition at the election and now we’re just intent to taking an axe to it piece by piece,” one new Labour MP told Sky News.
If it was an injustice in 2019 and in 2022, surely it’s still an injustice? Should other groups battling against injustice – like sub-postmasters and infected blood victims – be worried now?
Labour MPs were among those who criticised the decision in the House of Commons.
Gareth Snell, for Stoke-on-Trent Central, said today was a “sad moment” and asked the government to re-think its position if the economy improves.
Brian Leishman, for Alloa and Grangemouth, said he was “appalled” at the refusal to compensate the women, calling it “an incredible let down”.
