THE Parliamentary ombudsman has said Labour have “undermined” its report on injustices faced by Waspi women.
The ombudsman recommended in March last year that women born in the 1950s affected by increases to the state pension age be handed compensation of between £1000 and £2950 per person.
The report said that in addition to handing out compensation, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) must acknowledge its failings and apologise for the impact it has had.
The Labour Government offered Waspi women an apology, but opted not to hand out any compensation arguing it would be too much of a burden on the taxpayer – behaviour which has now been described as “extremely unusual” by the ombudsman.
On Wednesday, both the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaigners came under cross-questioning by MPs on the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee.
The ombudsman highlighted a 99.9% compliance rate for it recommendations and warned the watchdog would become a “toothless tiger if Parliament steps away from supporting us when there isn’t compliance".
It hit back at Labour's claim that 90% of women knew their state pension age was changing, saying this was contradictory to the minister's apology, adding this acted as a “red herring” in the Government’s decision not to compensate.
It comes after new Pensions Minister Torsten Bell responded to a Parliamentary Question about Waspi compensation saying the Government’s claim that most women knew about the changes was based on a survey of only 203 affected women.
The minister said the Government then used this figure to estimate the percentage of the 3.6 million Waspi women across the country who knew about the changes.
Campaigners have blasted the Government’s “cherry picking” of data, noting the survey question asked whether respondents were aware the state pension age was changing in the future, but not whether they knew if this would impact them and how.
Karl Banister, director of operations, legal and clinical, and deputy ombudsman at the PHSO, said: “It is not helpful that the Government has undermined some of that [the report], in some of the ways it’s responded, saying some women did know, picking out some aspects of the surveys but not all the surveys on women’s knowledge.
“In 99.9% of our investigations there is full compliance with our recommendations whether this is an apology, policy change or financial compensation and this case is extremely unusual.”
This week, MSPs in the Scottish Parliament unanimously backed a Scottish Government motion calling on the UK Government to compensate Waspi women as recommended by the PHSO.
Every party, including Scottish Labour, called on the UK Government to reconsider its decision.
Following the committee session, Waspi chair Angela Madden said: “The ombudsman clearly and strongly defended their report’s findings, and we welcomed his resolve that compensation is absolutely key to justice.
“As recognised by the watchdog, the government has been cherry-picking data that suits its conclusions, rather than listening to the hard facts in the report.
“With increasing discontent from its own MPs, Labour must give proper time to Parliament to debate and vote on a fair compensation scheme.”
