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The Waspi women have been making headlines this week – but who are they and what are they campaigning for?
What does Waspi stand for?
It means Women Against State Pension Inequality.
What does it do?
The group represents women who were born in the 1950s and who were impacted by increases to their retirement age.
They want fairer retirement payouts after changes to the state pension age, meant to equalise it across genders, meant they were out of pocket.
Women’s state pension age was increased from 60 to 65 so it was equal with men’s between 2010 and 2018.
Both men and women’s state pension age was changed to 66 in 2020, and is set to rise again from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028.
So Waspi have campaigned for compensation from the government, claiming they weren’t adequately informed about the change – some were left struggling to pay bills, others working through ill health.
According to Waspi, more than a quarter of a million women have died since the campaign began.
Why are those in Waspi in the news?
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published its second report into the issue on Thursday, after looking into the saga for five years.
This report found that those affected were not adequately informed – and therefore need an apology and payouts.
It called for parliament to “act swiftly” to set up a compensation scheme, offering between £1,000 and £2,950 for each person impacted.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has not acknowledged its errors or tried to put things right, according to the watchdog.
The report stated: “We recognise the very significant cost to taxpayers of compensating all women affected by DWP’s maladministration.
“Compensating all women born in the 1950s at the level four range would involve spending between around £3.5 billion and £10.5 billion of public funds, though we understand not all of them will have suffered injustice.”
What has the government said?
The government is not obliged to follow these recommendations, although a spokesperson for the prime minister and DWP said the government will consider the report.
DWP said the government is “committed” to supporting pensioners, while staying fair to taxpayers.
They added: “The state pension is the foundation of income in retirement and will remain so as we deliver a further 8.5% rise in April which will increase the state pension for 12 million pensioners by £900.”
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