MP likens Government to flat-earthers over refusal to compensate Waspi women
The Government last December ruled out a compensation package for women born in the 1950s, whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men.
This is despite Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves being among the senior ministers to support the Waspi campaign when Labour was in opposition.
A report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) had recommended the UK Government pay compensation to women born in the 1950s whose state pension age was raised so it would be equal with men.
The watchdog also said the women should be paid up to £2,950 each, a package with a potential total cost of £10.5 billion to the public purse, as poor communication meant they had lost out on the chance to plan their retirement finances.
The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) group is currently seeking a judicial review to force the Government to reconsider its decision to rule out a compensation package.
Work and pensions minister Torsten Bell, who is also a Treasury minister, said the Government does not agree with the Ombudsman's approach 'to injustice or to remedy'.
Speaking in the Commons, Ms Long Bailey argued that 'cost does not need to be and should not be a barrier to justice', as she urged the Government to introduce a wealth tax to fund a compensation scheme.
The MP for Salford said: 'I don't want (Mr Bell) to go down in history as the man who denied justice for the 1950s women, I honestly don't. I want to see action on this, and I want him to go down as the person who finally, finally managed to award them justice.
'But at the moment, he's got to understand that the arguments being put forward by the Government are absurd, to say the least. In fact, they're akin to somebody arguing that the world is flat, in denying the Ombudsman's report.'
Waspi campaigners outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Haixin Tan/PA)
Earlier in her contribution, the former Labour leadership candidate, who had called the debate, disputed the Government's assertion that the women knew the change was coming.
She said: 'Whilst the Government agreed with the finding of maladministration and apologised, no redress would be forthcoming.
'And contrary to the Ombudsman, they actually felt that the majority of women did know about changes to their pension age, based on Department for Work and Pensions research, and that sending the women letters would not have been effective, which I'm sure most people would agree is bizarre.
'It's pretty effective when a bill addressed to you coming through your door comes through, it's pretty effective when it's a hospital appointment, it's pretty effective on the very rare but joyous occasion that HMRC gives you a tax rebate cheque.
'So, I ask, honestly, would 1950s-born women have actively refused to open letters with their name on from the DWP? It makes no sense.'
Ms Long Bailey went on to say: 'In terms of options to make sure that schemes could be financially sustainable, Waspi have calculated that HM Treasury have saved a whopping £181 billion alone by increasing the state pension age.
'Well, there's other options, there's the option of applying a 1% to 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, raising up to £22 billion a year. Equalise capital gains tax with income tax rates, raising £15.2 billion a year. Apply national insurance to investment income, raising £8.6 billion a year.
'End stealth subsidies on banks, and you get up to £55 billion over the next five years, and even Gordon Brown has advocated for this. So cost does not need to be, and should not be, a barrier to justice.'
During the debate, Independent MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell joked that the Government would soon be proscribing the Waspi group.
On Wednesday, MPs supported legislation to proscribe the Palestine Action group as a terrorist organisation.
Mr McDonnell said: 'I pay tribute to the campaign. A lot of those ladies have been patronised over the years, it was a terrific campaign. In fact, it was so terrific under this Government at the moment, they would probably be proscribed.'
Responding to the debate, Mr Bell said: 'We agree that letters should have been sent sooner. We have apologised, and we will learn the lessons from that.
'However, as honourable members and campaigners on this issue are well aware, we do not agree with the Ombudsman's approach to injustice or to remedy.'
He added: 'An important consideration when making this decision was that evidence showed that sending people unsolicited letters is unlikely (to) affect what they knew, which is why letters are sent, but they are sent as part of wider communication campaigns.
'This evidence was not properly considered by the Ombudsman.
'Another consideration was that the great majority of 1950s-born women were aware that the state pension age was changing, if not their specific state pension age.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economist
13 minutes ago
- Economist
Macron will beat Trump to London
When Sir Keir Starmer sat down with Donald Trump at the White House in February, the British prime minister handed over a letter from King Charles III inviting the American president for a state visit to Britain. On July 8th a foreign president will indeed arrive in Britain for the first state visit the king has hosted this year. Yet the guest will be not Mr Trump but President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Daily Mail
15 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Britons deliver a devastating verdict on Keir Starmer's first year in power... so what DO they think has been his biggest achievement?
Voters have answered with a resounding 'NOTHING' when asked what has been the biggest achievement of Keir Starmer 's first year in power, a new poll shows. More in Common asked voters to offer their one or two-word responses to Labour 's best and worst actions of the party's first 12 months in power to create a word cloud. And it was pretty brutal, with most people unable to thing of anything good. Only its work on the NHS made much of a dent in people's gloomy assessment. On the flipside, they were very clear in what has gone wrong. The Winter Fuel Allowance row was far and away the biggest cock-up in people's minds. It saw Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves try to take away the £300 universal benefit away from all but the poorest recipients, before being forced into a U-turn. More in Common's director Luke Tryl said it was 'one of the most stark word clouds we've seen - the Winter Fuel Allowance drowns everything else out'. The other major problem to stand out for voters was immigration, with more than 20,000 people already having crossed the English Channel in small boats this year, a record. More in Common asked voters to offer their one or two-word responses to Labour's best and worst actions of the party's first 12 months in power to create a word cloud. And it was pretty brutal, with most people unable to thing of anything good. Sir Keir is facing Labour dissent, economic uncertainty and spiralling conflict abroad as he marks a year in Number 10. The Prime Minister led his party back into power with more than 400 MPs on July 4 last year – clinching a majority just short of Sir Tony Blair's landslide in 1997. But with a daunting in-tray of problems including a stuttering economy, creaking public services and global volatility, his political honeymoon period was short-lived. His personal popularity is now the lowest of any British premier after their first 12 months in office, political scientist and polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said. 'There were pretty clear potential weaknesses before they even started, and most of those weaknesses have basically just been exposed over the course of the last 12 months.' Sir John said part of the problem lay in what he described as a failure of narrative in setting out the Government's vision for change to the public. 'They're portraying themselves as a repair gang rather than the builders of a new Jerusalem. Pessimism doesn't necessarily go down very well,' he said. 'The thing with Starmer is, he's a brilliant prosecution lawyer… But prosecution lawyers present cases that have been (put together) by someone else. The problem is that as a political leader you've got to prosecute your own case. 'Maybe he needs new personnel? Either he's got to learn to do it himself or get someone in to do it for him.' That verdict was echoed by some dissenting voices within Labour ranks, where there is lingering discontent among rebels over the Government's Welfare Bill despite Number 10 offering major concessions on the legislation. The Government saw off the threat of a major Commons defeat over the legislation on Tuesday after shelving plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability benefit in England. 'I think he really needs to think about why he wants to be a Labour Prime Minister and what is it he actually cares about,' one long-serving Labour MP said. They said Tuesday had marked 'the lowest point' in Sir Keir's premiership so far and raised questions about his authority, warning that backbenchers may now feel emboldened to demand further U-turns elsewhere. Sir John said that the Government's challenges in passing legislation were unsurprising in light of the broad but fragile coalition of support on which Labour built its election victory, securing 412 seats on just 35% of the vote. That means many MPs defending narrow majorities and raises the prospect of 'a large body of people who are nervous about their political futures,' he said.
The Independent
17 minutes ago
- The Independent
It is time to release prisoners trapped by inhuman endless jail terms
The Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence, introduced in 2005 under the Labour government, was intended to protect the public from serious offenders deemed too dangerous for a fixed-term release. But nearly two decades on, this law stands as one of the most egregious stains on Britain's criminal justice system. Abolished in 2012 for its inherent flaws, it nonetheless continues to trap thousands of people in a cruel legal limbo, as a debate in the House of Lords today will no doubt highlight. It is long past time that every person still serving an IPP sentence be resentenced. The continued use of this now-defunct punishment is both unjust and, arguably, inhumane. At its core, the IPP sentence allowed judges to hand out indeterminate prison terms for offences that did not justify life imprisonment but were deemed serious enough to warrant extended supervision. Offenders were given a 'tariff' – the minimum time they must serve before being considered for release. Many of these tariffs were shockingly short, some as low as two years. Yet thousands remain in prison long after these tariffs have expired. Why? Because release is dependent not on time served, but on proving to the Parole Board that they are no longer a danger to the public – a nebulous, subjective, and often unreachable standard. This flips the basic presumption of justice on its head. In a fair system, the state must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt to imprison a person. Under IPP, once the tariff is served, the burden of proof shifts unfairly to the prisoner. It is no longer the state's job to justify incarceration; it is the prisoner's burden to earn freedom. This is particularly problematic when access to rehabilitative programmes, often required for parole, is limited or unavailable – especially in overcrowded prisons. The system sets people up to fail and then blames them for not succeeding. Moreover, the psychological toll of such indefinite punishment is catastrophic. Suicide and self-harm rates among IPP prisoners are significantly higher than average. Many live in a state of constant uncertainty and despair, unsure if they will ever be released, even decades after their offence. It is not unusual to find individuals still imprisoned for minor crimes – such as theft or assault – that would today warrant only a few years behind bars, yet they languish without a release date. The punishment no longer fits the crime, if it ever did. The injustice of the IPP system has been widely recognised. The House of Commons justice committee labelled it "irredeemably flawed" and called for all remaining IPP prisoners to be resentenced. The European Court of Human Rights has also condemned aspects of the sentence as incompatible with human rights obligations. Yet the government has so far refused to act decisively, citing public safety and political sensitivity. This is a failure of courage and leadership. Protecting public safety does not require trampling basic rights or holding people indefinitely for crimes long past. Dangerous individuals can be managed through proper risk assessment and robust parole conditions – not through perpetual punishment without end. Resentencing every IPP prisoner is not only fair, it is necessary. It would give judges the opportunity to reconsider the nature and severity of each offence and impose a proportionate, fixed sentence with clear guidance for release. For many, this would mean immediate or imminent freedom; for others, it would offer clarity, rehabilitation goals, and hope – something the current system wholly lacks. Justice demands consistency, proportionality, and transparency. The IPP sentence undermines all three. Some argue that resentencing might release dangerous individuals back into society. But the risk can be responsibly managed without recourse to indeterminate detention. Modern sentencing tools, community supervision, mental health support, and parole frameworks are all capable of mitigating risk. Perpetual incarceration without due process is not a solution – it is a violation. Britain prides itself on the rule of law, but this chapter of penal policy betrays that principle. IPP sentences should not only be consigned to history – they must be actively undone. Every person still caught in this Kafkaesque trap deserves a proper sentence, a path to rehabilitation, and a chance at freedom. Anything less is a continuation of a deep and unforgivable wrong.
