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3 weeks ago
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Some women born in the 1950s were not adequately warned that they would have to work up to six extra years before drawing their state pension. Some have been left to rely on meagre benefits while they wait for delayed pensions. In March, an ombudsman judged that they deserved redress for communication failings, recommending compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 each for maladministration.
However, the government claims that this is not justified on the grounds that about 90% of these women did know the new retirement age. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said: “Given that the vast majority of people did know about these changes, I didn’t judge that it would be the best use of taxpayers’ money to pay an expensive compensation bill for something that most people knew was happening.”
The women’s case has merit, as I have previously written, but in a country that is stricken with poverty, the “Waspi women” have slipped down the list of priorities. Here’s the problem. It would cost up to £10.5bn to pay compensation to all 3.5 million women affected. This huge sum would be handed out regardless of need: Theresa May would be owed £22,000.
The Waspis are the most formidable lobby. Politicians’ hearts sink when they see them coming, sometimes dressed as suffragettes, turning up wherever ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) meet, well-armed with stories of hardship and hard facts.
Promises were made. Before the 2019 election Jeremy Corbyn said: “We owe a moral debt to these women,” offering them £12bn a year for five years, while Boris Johnson made a pledge to “commit to doing everything I possibly can to sorting it out”. Such wild promises were whirling in that pre-election air that the Resolution Foundation said both parties would struggle to stay within their own budgetary limits. In power, the Tories never paid up.
Though an offer of compensation was not in Labour’s 2024 manifesto, some Tories, now in carefree opposition, have accused Labour of “betrayal”. Some Labour MPs who made pledges to Waspis are threatening to rebel if it comes to a vote. Diane Abbott asked at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday: “Does the prime minister really understand how let down Waspi women feel today?” But those MPs should ask themselves what they would do if they were the DWP secretary with £10.5bn to spend. That would pay to abolish the two-child limit and the household benefit cap for three years, freeing 620,000 children from poverty.
It could raise the maximum income eligibility for free school meals from today’s shocking £7,500 for those who claim universal credit. About 470,000 children in England who are entitled to free school meals do not claim them. How about providing universal free dinners? Benefits for families are miserably low: if only children had the same ever-escalating triple lock on benefits as older people have on pensions, which will increase by £472 a year from April.
If pensioner poverty is a priority, lift the threshold so that more are entitled to pension credit and therefore the winter fuel payment and a string of other benefits. Had that already been done, it would have drawn the sting from abolishing the payment for the many who don’t need it.
Alas, the DWP doesn’t have this £10.5bn, but if the spring spending review doesn’t find the money for the poorest children and the (fewer) poor pensioners, all hell will break loose on the Labour benches, quite rightly. Let MPs keep their powder dry over the Waspis, and focus any new money on the poorest first. If only children had the Waspis’ campaigning power. If only all those entitled to benefits were chased with the same vigour as benefit cheats.
Despite more people applying for pension credit to receive the winter fuel payment, about 780,000 eligible pensioners have still not done so. Many who did apply are stuck in a queue. With a government determined to find them, it can’t be beyond the wit of the DWP to check everyone already receiving the basic pension.
The Waspis have a better moral case than I have made here. What they are really demanding is retrospective justice for the outrageous misogyny that women suffered for generations. Many left school at 14 or 15 to work in hard jobs that took a toll on their health. Few had educational opportunities and were classified as unskilled, with their skills undervalued because they did “women’s work”.
Many working in factories were paid less by mutual agreement between employers and unions. When researching a book, I discovered trade union agreements insisting that women be paid less for fear they would take men’s jobs – hence the Dagenham machinists’ strike. Careers in caring, catering and cashiering were low paid because mostly women did them. There was no subsidised childcare or nursery places until the Blair/Brown era. Cheated in working life, women are entitled to less in retirement. Equalising the state pension age for men and women was inevitable, though the fact that it’s the only financial equality that has been imposed with a rod of iron leaves a bitter taste.
The Waspi case went to court under the Tories in 2019 and was lost, with the government lawyer James Eadie delivering a blunt legal truth: “Parliament has no substantive, freestanding obligation of fairness.”
Nor does a government have a financial duty to repair historical sexism. But it is the basic duty and purpose of any Labour government to eliminate poverty in the here and now, starting with those in most desperate need. Every Labour government leaves fewer poor children and poor pensioners. That is their task. Those Waspis who are not poor come lower in the priority list: sorry, Theresa May.
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Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
