ANAS Sarwar has declined to clarify how Scottish Labour MPs would vote on Waspi compensation despite suggestions from his Holyrood colleague they would back it if a vote was held at Westminster.
At the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, MSPs cast aside their political allegiances and called on the UK Government to give compensation to 1950s-born women affected by changes to the state pension age.
The 1995 Pensions Act and subsequent legislation raised the state pension age for women born on or after April 6, 1950.
In a report in March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) suggested compensation of between £1000 and £2950 per person due to failures in communicating changes in the state pension age.
However, despite figures including now-Prime Minister Keir Starmer backing the calls for compensation while in opposition, Labour have declined to pay any compensation and instead simply offered an apology.
In front of several Waspi [Women Against State Pension Inequality] campaigners in the gallery, MSPs unanimously backed a Scottish Government motion calling on the UK Government "to compensate Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women as recommended by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman".
Labour MSP Michael Marra at one stage seemed to suggest that if a vote was to happen at Westminster on the matter – something the LibDems have been fighting for – Scottish Labour MPs would also push for compensation.
Asked how Scottish Labour MPs would vote if one occurred, he replied: "Many of the members the minister [Shirley-Anne Somerville] talks about were at the APPG [All-Party Parliamentary Group] last week setting exactly the position we have laid out today and I fully anticipate that's exactly how they will pursue it in Parliament if a vote is brought in the future."
However, when asked whether he agreed with Marra, Sarwar would not clarify how Scottish Labour MPs would vote.
“What I know Scottish Labour MPs are doing and MPs across the UK are doing is not thinking about political performance but actually what is happening and how it impacts people and I made my views really clear that I recognise the challenging economic climate, I recognise the disaster that the Tories left in our public finances, but there was an injustice done to these women, an injustice we rightly recognise and the Government rightly apologised for even though it wasn’t their decision.
“But I think we could find a middle ground that allows us to recognise the difficult economic circumstances whilst also compensating those that have been victims of this injustice and that can be done in a variety of ways: tapering of payments, targeting of payments to lower income pensioners and women. That feels to me a fairer way of doing it.”
Sarwar – who was not in the chamber for the Holyrood vote but did cast a vote online – has previously said he thought it was wrong of the UK Government not to offer compensation.
Pressed on whether Marra was wrong to suggest Scottish Labour MPs would back compensation, Sarwar said: “One, we don’t know if there’s going to be a vote, two, we don’t know, if there is a vote, when that would be, three, we don’t know the words of any vote are, and there are still conversations ongoing.”
In the House of Commons on Wednesday, SNP MP Stephen Gethins questioned Scotland Office minister Kirsty McNeill whether she would listen to Scottish Labour MSPs after they voted in favour of offering compensation to Waspi women.
He said: “The minister campaigned on compensation for Waspi women as the Secretary of State for Scotland [Ian Murray] did. So will she tell me, if she won’t listen to the women, if she won’t listen to the ombudsman, will she listen to Scottish Labour MSPs who called for compensation?”
McNeill accused Gethins of being in a “dreadful fankle”.
“What we said at the election was that we would wait for the ombudsman’s report, we would examine it, and we would take a view. We have taken a view that up tot £10 billion of public money should not be spent providing compensation on a decision that was legal and which it has been concluded the vast majority of 1950s-born women were aware,” McNeill said.
