Money expert Martin Lewis has fired back over the ‘real issues’ he says have been exposed following the WASPI women pension decision.
For years, campaigners have pushed for compensation after the state pension age for women was pushed back, meaning women had to wait longer until they could claim their state pension.
The campaigners argued that they were not given enough notice to prepare for the change, a view backed by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which found that there had been ‘maladministration’ in the way the state pension changes were communicated.
But the government has now announced that the WASPI women will not be compensated after all, despite the ombudsman’s ruling.
Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis took to X to set out his ‘issue’ with Ombudsmen as a result of the ruling.
He said: “The Waspi judgement today throws up real issues about Ombudsmen. What is the point of an Ombudsman when its judgements aren’t enforceable. “Too few ombudsmen have full statutory powers to enforce decisions (Financial Ombudsman does) .
“Either fix that or at least ban any that don’t from being called ombudsman just call them “dispute resolution”.”
Martin then added that he had been getting messages about whether Labour broke its election promise.
He said that while it hadn’t, some Labour MPs had ‘vocally supported’ a payout before the election.
Martin added: “Some asking me if Labour has breached its ‘election’ promise over Waspi by not paying out. I don’t think that is correct – it didnt promise that….The key word is ‘election’ though, some Labour MPs including shadow cabinet members vocally supported a payout pre-election.”
Angela Madden, chairwoman of Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) said: “The Government has today made an unprecedented political choice to ignore the clear recommendations of an independent watchdog which ordered ministers urgently to compensate Waspi women nine months ago.
“This is a bizarre and totally unjustified move which will leave everyone asking what the point of an ombudsman is if ministers can simply ignore their decisions.
“It feels like a decision that would make the likes of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump blush.”
The Government said it has accepted the Ombudsman’s finding of maladministration and has apologised for there being a 28-month delay in writing to 1950s-born women.
But it said evidence showed only one in four people remember receiving and reading letters that they were not expecting and that the great majority of 1950s-born women did know that the state pension age was changing.
The Government said a blanket compensation scheme, which could cost taxpayers up to £10.5 billion, cannot be justified.
It would also be impossible to deliver a tailored compensation scheme taking into account individual circumstances that is fair, value for money and feasible, it added.
In a statement, pensions secretary Liz Kendall said: “The alternative put forward in the report is for a flat rate compensation scheme, at level four of the Ombudsman’s scale of injustice, this would provide £1,000 to £2,950 per person at a total cost of between £3.5 billion and 10.5 billion.
“Given the vast majority of women knew the state pension age was increasing, the Government does not believe paying a flat rate to all women at a cost of up to £10.5 billion would be a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers’ money.”
