LABOUR’S failure to commit to compensation for Waspi women ignores “their plight” in losing out on pension payments, an SNP MP has said.
While Chancellor Rachel Reeves committed to compensation worth £11.8 billion for victims of the infected blood scandal and £1.8bn for subpostmasters wrongly convicted by the Post Office, Waspi women were left out.
They have been campaigning to be compensated after they were caught unawares of the state pension age, which meant they believed they were entitled to pensions prematurely.
Seamus Logan, the SNP MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, said every woman affected “deserves compensation”.
He told The National: “I – in common with many, many thousands of women who suffered financial loss in their pension entitlement due to Government maladministration – am deeply disappointed the Chancellor saw fit to ignore their plight today. It just feels like this Government is burying its head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away.”
The “tragedy” of their situation is that because of the age of those affected by pension entitlement ages being increased at an accelerated pace, leaving them in the lurch, is that “women are dying without redress”.
Logan added: “I call on the Government to address this issue urgently and give these women the justice they deserve.
“We don’t want a means tested approach, every woman deserves compensation regardless of circumstances. The fight goes on and we will win.”
Labour politicians have previously committed to Waspi compensation but distanced themselves from the campaign in the run-up to this year’s General Election.
