Women state pension campaigners could hear an update about compensation “in the not too distant future”, the Prime Minister has said.
Sir Keir Starmer has told reporters that the Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall will make a statement “on this in the not too distant future”.
Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) have advocated for support for women who were born in the 1950s and say they did not get adequate warnings about changes to the state pension. Asked by reporters on the trip to the G20 summit in Brazil why compensation was taking so long, the Prime Minister said: “The DWP secretary will be making a statement on this in the not too distant future.
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He added: “Obviously it’s a very serious report, and the response will be set out by the DWP Secretary.”
Earlier this month, pensions minister Emma Reynolds told the Commons that the Government hoped “to be able to update the House in the coming weeks”.
She told MPs: “The ombudsman took six years to look at what are a range of complex cases, and we are looking at the complexity of those cases.
“I was the first minister in six years to meet with representatives of the Waspi campaign. We hope to be able to update the House in the coming weeks.”
The 1995 Pensions Act increased the state pension age for women from 60 to 65 in order to equalise the age with men, with the change to be phased in over ten years from 2010 for women born between 1950 and 1955. This transition was later sped up by the 2011 Pensions Act. Both the 1995 and 2011 changes came as a shock to many, with women discovering that they would have to wait up to six years longer for their state pension, upending the retirement plans of many.
A report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) found that affected women should have had at least 28 months’ more individual notice of the changes by the Department for Work and Pensions.
It also said that for women who were not aware of the changes, the opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans was lost due to delay.
The PHSO further suggested that compensation at level four, ranging between £1,000 and £2,950, could be appropriate for each of those affected.
