KEIR Starmer has been blasted for a “one rule for him” pension plan he benefits from as he refuses to commit to compensation for women “swindled” out of their state pensions.
During a Westminster debate on compensation for Waspi women – who lost out on their state pensions – SNP MP Patricia Gibson slammed the “cosy consensus” between Labour and the Tories.
Neither side has committed to compensating Waspi women despite being urged to do so in a damning report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman earlier this year.
Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, the North Ayrshire MP said the Labour Party were the “loyal opposition, loyal in ways we can only imagine” for their proximity to the Government’s position.
Gibson described the changes to the state pension age, which the Ombudsman found had not been properly communicated to women as they were sped up, as a "swindle".
She added: “Waspi women I have spoken to feel particularly betrayed by Labour MPs and MSPs who have spent the last umpteen years posing for photos alongside Waspi campaigners, pledging empty words of support, only to abandon them at the very moment they are vindicated by the Ombudsman.”
Gibson (above) said the Government and Labour were operating in a “cosy do-nothing consensus sacrificing Waspi women on the bonfire of austerity”.
And she highlighted the Labour leader’s personal pension plan guaranteed by a “special law”.
It was revealed by The Telegraph last year that Starmer, as former director of public prosecutions, benefits from a pension plan approved by parliament since 2013 which allows him to avoid tax on his savings.
Gibson said: “I suppose it is hard for the Labour leadership in Westminster to sympathise with Waspi women given that the leader of the opposition has a special law passed in parliament – The Pensions Increase (Pension Scheme for Keir Starmer QC) Regulations 2013 – relating to when he was the director of public prosecutions in England where his personal pension is protected.
“It is literally one law for him and another law for everyone else. And it does not escape anyone’s notice that the leader of the opposition has grown very silent on the injustice suffered by WASPI women and supports less generous pensions for everyone else.
“What a brass neck. What shameful hypocrisy. Maybe he is just so cock-sure of a thumping majority at the next election that he thinks Waspi women are expendable.”
It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (above) was grilled on daytime chat show Loose Women. Panellist Janet Street-Porter asked him: “Why do you hate pensioners?”
She added that the Spring Budget had lowered National Insurance, which didn’t benefit pensioners and froze tax bands meaning pensioners would pay more tax if they took part time jobs to make ends meet in retirement.
Street-Porter added: “There’s an argument that pensioners have come out worse under the Tories, or worse under your supervision.”
Sunak replied: “I care deeply about pensioners.”
He added that the Government had protected the generous triple-lock, which sees pensions virtually guaranteed to rise above other benefits each year.
The UK Government and Labour were approached for comment.
