Members of Parliament at Westminster have voted in favour of providing compensation to WASPIs – Women Against State Pension Inequality, after a debate in the House of Commons yesterday, 28th January 2025.
The SNP – Scottish National Party initiated vote, driven by a bill introduced by their Westminster Leader Stephen Flynn MP. The proposed legislation calls on the Labour Government to compensate women born in the 1950s who were negatively impacted by changes to the state pension age.
This drive was backed by the Scottish Government and the Holyrood Cross Party Parliamentary WASPI Group. Sadie-Michaela Harris from Excluded Scotland Team has represented the Excluded WASPI members in Scotland at the CPPG since the pandemic. The Excluded WASPIs have been negatively impacted by the UK Government twice now, they continue to live with the utterly intolerable and unacceptable hardship on both counts. According to the ONS – Office for National Statistics over 300,000 women have died while waiting for this compensation – this equates to one woman dying every 13 minutes.
In March last year, the PHSO – Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman recommended compensation amounts ranging from £1,000 to £2,950 per individual. This followed a finding of historical failings by the DWP – Department for Work and Pensions, which had failed to adequately inform affected women about the changes to the pension age. This giving the remit to compensate the WASPIs for Maladministration.
Despite the recommendation, the Labour Government announced before Christmas that it would not be offering compensation. The Ombudsman criticized this decision as “highly unusual,” pointing out that 99.9% of its recommendations are typically adhered to.
After Tuesday’s 10 Minute Bill, raised by Stephen Flynn, Westminster MPs voted unanimously with 105 Ayes’ and 0 Noes’ in favour of urging the Government to provide compensation to the WASPIs.
Although this means the bill has passed its first hurdle in the Commons, the vote is largely symbolic. Private Members’ Bills introduced by MPs often face significant challenges in becoming law, especially if they lack Government backing or sufficient parliamentary time to progress through all required stages.
We understand the next significant date will be 7th March when a second reading of the bill will take place. In the interim we encourage everyone to contact their Westminster MP to support this bill at the next hearing.
