Official Report 809KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-20614, in the name of Bill Kidd, on justice for women against state pension inequality. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament condemns the latest decision by the UK Government regarding, and its continued refusal to compensate, the more than 3.5 million women affected by the acknowledged failures of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to inform them of state pension age increases, despite the UK Government being made to reconsider its original refusal as a result of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Ombudsman, which called for compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for each of those affected; echoes the comments of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) group, which said that the latest decision demonstrated “utter contempt” for those affected in the Glasgow Anniesland constituency and across the country, and notes the calls for the immediate reversal of what it sees as this shameful, immoral and inhumane decision.
16:56
I begin by paying tribute to all the women who have campaigned tirelessly to right this terrible wrong. If it had not been for their tenacity, their determination and their deep sense of injustice, we would never have got this far, so to every WASPI woman, I say, “Thank you very much”.
The motion before us could not be clearer. Today, we condemn the United Kingdom Government’s continued refusal to compensate the more than 3.5 million women across the UK who are affected by the acknowledged failures of the Department for Work and Pensions to properly inform them of increases to their state pension age. We condemn the fact that that indefensible refusal blatantly ignores the advice of the Government’s advisers, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, which recommended compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for every woman who has been so badly let down. We champion the voice of the WASPI women in their campaign. The latest decision demonstrates utter contempt for the women affected, and today, we demand the immediate reversal of what can only be described as a shameful, immoral and inhumane decision by the UK Government.
To understand the anger, we must remember the history. The UK Government’s Pensions Act 1995 increased the state pension age for women from 60 to 65. That in itself was a significant change, but the real injustice lies in how it was handled. Women were not properly or personally notified. Many had planned a retirement around receiving their pension at the age of 60, resulting in untold financial hardship.
In 2011, further increases to the state pension age were brought in faster than the then UK Government had promised, meaning that some women had to wait disproportionately longer for their pension. For example, a one-year difference in birth year could result in a three-year difference to the state pension age.
In 2021 and 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman concluded that the Department for Work and Pensions had repeatedly failed to act and was guilty of maladministration. Yet, despite that clear ruling, despite the recommendation for compensation and despite the UK Government being forced to review its earlier refusal, the decision in January was to award nothing—nothing.
Across the UK, 3.6 million women have been affected, including almost 336,000 women in Scotland. Many have faced severe financial hardship and have depleted their savings, taken on debt, worked longer in ill health, or been forced into poverty. In Scotland, 23 per cent of single female pensioners live in relative poverty, with two thirds of pension credit claimants being women. The gender pension gap stands at nearly 40 per cent, with the gap growing to £100,000 by retirement age. By their late 50s, women’s pension wealth is just 62 per cent of men’s. Those are not just statistics; they are real lives—those are injustices.
The other week, I had the privilege of meeting at the Scottish Parliament many of those who are campaigning for justice. My local WASPI 2018 campaign group is one of the groups that has been tireless in its calls for justice and it is one of the most active groups in the UK. I take a moment to put on record my heartfelt thanks to and respect for its extraordinary organiser, Marion McMillan, and her good friend from the south side of Glasgow, Christine McMillan—they are no relation to each other—for their relentless work. Dressed in their purple pinstriped blouses and proudly perched boaters, they reminded me, as I stood outside the Parliament building with them, of the suffragettes and the courage, dignity and quiet strength of those who came before them. They reminded us all of the many struggles that women have endured and the victories that they have hard won. They reminded us that discrimination against women did not end in 1918 or in 1928; it certainly did not end in 1995, and nor has it ended today. When I spoke to them, many women told me that Labour’s decision was the final straw. They said that they would not trust the UK Government again, and some said that they would not trust Labour again. Frustration has turned to anger, and anger has turned to something deeper: a loss of trust.
Governments must be trusted to make the right decisions, to listen and to act when wrongdoing is identified. On this issue, the UK Government has failed that test. We need a Government that we can trust to make the right decisions for the people and a Government that listens to the people. If Scotland had the powers that independence would bring, we could make those decisions and right those wrongs. We would not be waiting for Westminster to show compassion, or watching an ombudsman’s recommendations gather dust. We should have the tools to act, and to act justly.
The women I met in their purple pinstripes deserve better; they deserve a Government that they can trust, that honours its obligations and that does not treat them with contempt. Justice for WASPI women is not a footnote; it is a test of fairness and integrity and, I believe, a test of where power should lie.
Let us stand with those women; let us condemn this shameful decision and work to see it changed; and let us continue to argue for a Scotland that has the power to right such wrongs—a Scotland where justice is not delayed, denied or dismissed, but delivered.
We move to the open debate.
17:03
I say from the outset that I have never spoken in a WASPI debate before or had any involvement, but I have seen, listened to and heard the voice of many campaigners over the years, particularly when I was on Moray Council from 2017 until 2021.
I have been reading some of the history of the debate. I will not go over old ground, as many of the facts and details have been well established through numerous debates, legal disputes and reviews. If I understand it correctly, the decision to begin the process of equalising the state pension age for men and women dates back to 1995, which Bill Kidd alluded to. That is more than 30 years ago. That decision has been supported by every UK Government since then and, I believe, was originally supported by the Scottish National Party. The motion calls on the UK Government to pay out a compensation package, which would likely come with an estimated cost of around £10.3 billion, as I understand it.
Back in 2022, when Sir Keir Starmer was leader of the Opposition, he called for fair and fast compensation for WASPI women, but now that he is Prime Minister, that is no longer the case. Arguably, Labour could have been upfront about that choice in 2024; instead, the matter was dragged out for more than a year before Labour confirmed that it had no intention of paying compensation.
Based on all that I have read, I have the greatest respect, understanding and sympathy for WASPI women, and I am not prepared to stand here and insult them by saying that my party would have taken a different position: we also did not introduce compensation during our time in government.
I will touch on the powers of the Scottish Parliament and something that Bill Kidd said at the end of his speech. I think that he was seeking independence in order to pay compensation. My understanding is that that sections 24, 26 and 28 of the Scotland Act 2016 give the Scottish Parliament a variety of powers that SNP ministers could have used to support the WASPI women if they had chosen to do so. I understand that the former Department for Work and Pensions minister, Guy Opperman, told the SNP in 2018 that, if the SNP took its own decisions in the Scottish Parliament to compensate, the UK Government would
“not object to that in any way.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 8 February 2018; Vol 635, c 1697.]
I do not think that hiding behind a rule that something is reserved is fair in this Parliament.
The decision to equalise and increase the state pension age for men and women was clearly not an easy decision to make, but it was a necessary one for the future of the state pension.
The Scottish Conservatives will continue to stand up for pensioners, ensuring that the important protections, such as the triple lock, remain in place, and continuing to call out the Labour Government on its decision to remove the winter fuel payment.
17:05
That might have been the first time that Tim Eagle has spoken in a WASPI debate. For his sake, I would suggest that he might want to make it the last time that he speaks in a WASPI debate.
I thank my friend Bill Kidd for lodging the motion that we are debating this evening. I also thank the WASPI campaign and Age Scotland for their briefings in advance of the debate.
I want to speak this evening in a spirit of solidarity with WASPI campaigners and to address the injustice that they face. The more than 336,000 women in Scotland, and, indeed, the more than 3.5 million women across the UK, who are affected by the failures of the Department for Work and Pensions deserve more than warm words and procedural delay. They deserve fairness, they deserve dignity and they deserve compensation for the hardship that they have endured.
We should remind ourselves that the concerns about injustice are borne out by the clear, careful and unequivocal findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Maladministration occurred and women were not properly informed of changes to their state pension age. As the WASPI campaign briefing reminds us, the ombudsman found that DWP officials were aware that numerous women who were affected by the changes were unaware that they were coming—and, I might add, modest compensation was recommended.
The UK Government has chosen to ignore those recommendations, however—recommendations that were made independently of any form of political or external interference. In doing so, it ignores the lived reality of countless numbers of women who have faced financial insecurity, anxiety and, in too many cases, real hardship. Let us remind ourselves that too many of the women who were affected are no longer with us and have no prospect of justice at all.
WASPI campaigners have fought tirelessly for years, many of them from my constituency. Many of them have been in touch with me, and I want to offer a small sample of what just some of them have told me.
One constituent, who was born in 1956, told me that, despite having lived at same address for over 24 years, she had no notification of the changes. She told me of feeling aggrieved, saying that, after she had paid into the system since she was 18 years of age with only a few years of childcare break, her pension entitlement was removed. Another constituent, who was born in 1957, told me she has been working and paying into the system since she was 16. She is self-employed and cares for her brother, who has severe epilepsy. She received only two years’ notice of the change and rightly feels that that was not sufficient notice to make up for the loss of six years’ pension entitlement. Another constituent, born in 1953 and a widow, spoke of the difficulties that she has faced despite already having downsized, and of facing challenges with paying utility bills and cost of living challenges.
Those are real lived experiences of women from my constituency, and their anger today is justified. They were led to believe that justice might finally be forthcoming, only to see hope withdrawn at the last moment.
As Age Scotland has made clear, the gender pension gap, which stands at 39 per cent, already leaves women approaching retirement with significantly less security than men. To compound that inequality with administrative failure and then to refuse any form of redress, despite that being recommended, is quite simply indefensible.
Before the most recent general election, countless senior figures in the Labour Party rushed to stand beside WASPI women. Tweets were sent, photographs were taken and promises were implied. Yet, once power beckoned, those same voices fell silent. WASPI women were abandoned.
I believe that it is time for Anas Sarwar to account for his actions in endorsing and championing a Labour Government—despite his new-found protestations about the Prime Minister. He and all those other senior Labour parliamentarians who promised to stand by WASPI women should apologise for abandoning them.
The injustice that WASPI women have faced must be recognised and remedied, and that hardship must be addressed. The women who worked, contributed and played by the rules should not be forgotten; they should be compensated, as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has said they must.
17:10
I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute remotely to tonight’s debate and I congratulate Bill Kidd on securing chamber time for this important issue. I am privileged to represent the north-east region, which is home to Linda Carmichael, the WASPI Scotland chair. I am grateful to Linda and the other WASPI delegates who travelled to Parliament earlier this month to speak to MSPs about their campaign for pension equality.
I put on record my support and solidarity with the women against state pension inequality campaign, and I thank the campaign and organisations such as Age Scotland for their briefings ahead of tonight’s debate.
These women had always expected to retire at 60 and made plans on that basis. I should add that the women made those plans against the backdrop of austerity, which made it harder for young mothers to access childcare and return to the workplace. As we have heard from the dedicated WASPI campaigners, the changes and maladministration meant that, in some cases, women could no longer care for their grandchildren or other family members, so it is incredibly disappointing that, following a fresh review, the UK Government has announced that there will be no financial compensation for WASPI women. I disagree with that decision. I do not think that it is right, and I will continue to call on the Government to think again.
Campaigners and affected women are justifiably angry about the decision. The change to state pension age has impacted around 336,000 women in Scotland. The current UK Government position is undoubtedly unfair, and we will not accept it. However, like other members, I do not believe that it is enough to criticise successive UK Governments when the Scottish Government could act to provide compensation to the WASPI women if it so wished. It has used those powers before and it can choose to do so again, but it does not want to act. As with so many issues, rather than utilising devolution to its fullest extent, the SNP has used the injustice faced by the WASPI women as a political football, preferring to exploit distress and indignation rather than use its powers in government to resolve it.
That is not a politics that I can support. That is why I added my support for the motion lodged by Katy Clark MSP, a long-time advocate for the WASPI campaign. That is why I have publicly called out the mistakes of the UK Government and did not hesitate to support Bill Kidd’s motion. Furthermore, that is why I will not stop speaking out in support of the WASPI women until they—and we—win, because an injustice to them is an injustice to all of us.
17:13
I am grateful to my friend and colleague, Bill Kidd, for bringing this debate to the chamber, and to the WASPI women who continue to campaign. Behind all the acronyms and parliamentary process sits the simple truth that these are real people—real women in our communities—who were let down by the UK Government.
I spoke during Kenny Gibson’s previous members’ business debate on this subject, so I was going to apologise if I repeated myself, but, after listening to some of the Opposition contributions today, I think that I will have to repeat myself. Tim Eagle said that the Scottish Government should provide the compensation, but the UK Government needs to take some responsibility for what it has done to the WASPI women. It is absolute nonsense for members to come here and make that academic argument at this stage.
The WASPI women are not asking for special treatment. They are not even arguing that the law should never have changed. They are asking for something far more basic. They are asking for fairness and redress, because the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found maladministration in the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions to properly communicate the changes to the women’s state pension age. The ombudsman looked at the evidence and concluded that many of the women born in the 1950s were left with little time to plan for the future.
This is not some abstract policy debate; this is about a woman in Paisley who worked for decades in her community and who made plans around her retirement age, only to be told far too late that the goalposts had moved. I have said this before: these are our mums—well, not in my case, because some of them are only 10 years older than me—our grandmothers and other members of our family. These are real lives. These are real people who live in our communities. This is about a worker who did everything right, who paid in, who believed that the system would keep faith with them and who then had to choose between heating and eating while waiting for a pension that would end up never coming.
In December 2024, the DWP apologised and accepted the maladministration, but refused to set up the compensation scheme. Then, when the WASPI women took legal action, the Labour UK Government settled, committed to reconsider the decision properly and even paid more than half of the WASPI women’s legal costs. However, in January this year, the Labour UK Government refused again. It came out with the same flawed arguments, the same cold comfort and the same old messages that had been given to thousands of women before. It said, “We know the system failed, but you are on your own”. What we have here is a U-turn on a U-turn, back to the original position.
The WASPI women were told to wait for the review and that the case would be considered afresh, but instead we got a rerun. For the women affected, that is not just disappointing—it is crushing. Every delay is not a line in a ministerial statement; it is another month of anxiety, another month of lost income and another month of feeling invisible.
My position on the matter is clear: I stand with the WASPI women, because justice delayed is justice denied. Today, I say this to the UK Government and to those in Opposition parties in this Parliament. Stop making excuses, stop hiding behind selective arguments and stop using recycled arguments. Do the right thing, accept that an injustice has been identified, provide fair compensation and restore a measure of dignity to women who have already been asked to pay far too high a price for the UK Government’s failure.
The UK Labour Government and Labour MPs, many of whom were elected on the back of supporting WASPI women, need to take responsibility and do the right thing.
17:17
I am grateful to my colleague Bill Kidd for bringing this important debate to the chamber.
The Labour UK Government’s decision not to compensate the WASPI women is as appalling as it is hypocritical. Prior to being in government, Labour politicians stood beside those women for every photo op and called for compensation, only to desert them once in power. With an election on the horizon, some are arguing that they are still on the side of WASPI women, but the WASPI women are not daft and will not be fooled this time. They know that warm words will not pay the bills.
The decision denies as many as 3.6 million women the rightful compensation that they deserve. In my constituency, 4,700 women in East Dunbartonshire and more than 6,000 in West Dunbartonshire have been affected by changes to the state pension age. Behind those figures are real women with deep and complex lives—women who have worked tirelessly, who, during their working life, were paid less than men, did not have maternity rights and might have had smaller private pensions, and who often took on most of the caring responsibilities for the family. Due to Government failings, those women find themselves facing financial uncertainty at a time when they should be able to enjoy the next stage of their life.
Since 2015, 405,770 WASPI women have died. That figure should haunt those on the Labour and Tory benches—nearly half a million women have died without even getting the rightful compensation that they deserved. That is truly shameful and a real injustice.
It is beyond doubt that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsmen was clear that these women should be compensated, but the Labour Government has ignored that decision. It is a historic injustice. The DWP’s own research showed that it failed to get the message across and chose to do absolutely nothing about it.
The Labour Government has said that compensation would not be a fair use of money, but the WASPI women said it best, stating recently:
“If your MP said, ‘paying compensation wouldn’t be fair or proportionate’, neither was it fair not to give adequate warning to the women affected.”
In the name of equality, the process has once again left women facing inequality. Alongside my SNP colleagues, I have stood beside these women for years, and I was pleased to see them—including one of my constituents—in the Parliament the other week to reiterate my support. The women were promised, in good faith, that a Labour UK Government would right that wrong, but we have instead seen U-turn after U-turn from the Labour Government. Make no mistake—the Labour Party, the Tories and Reform are no friends of the WASPI women. Only the SNP has been consistent in its support for the WASPI women, and I will continue to speak up about the issue.
For years, these women have remained resolute in their beliefs and have never given up, and I know that they will not give up now. However, time is, unfortunately, not on their side. They are understandably tired. They are tired of false promises, tired of U-turns, tired of being ignored, tired of being treated with contempt and tired of being told that they are wrong—but they are not wrong. They deserve fair and fast compensation now. That is a fact.
No more delays. No more lies. I stand here today with my SNP colleagues to urge the Labour UK Government to rethink this awful decision. Labour must reverse this shameful decision now. It is time for the WASPI women to be treated with the respect that they deserve. That is a moral duty.
17:21
I am grateful to Bill Kidd for his motion and for giving me the opportunity to contribute this evening. I do so in anger, in solidarity and in absolute determination to see justice done for WASPI women. For years, my party, the Scottish Greens, and I have stood in this chamber and outside it with women campaigning against state pension inequality. I have stood with them at rallies, at the cross-party group meetings and at packed public meetings across the north-east. I have met campaigners from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, from Dundee and Angus—women who did everything that was asked of them, who worked, who cared, who paid in and who were then blindsided by a state that simply failed to tell them that the rules had changed.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found maladministration. The Department for Work and Pensions failed to properly communicate the increase in the state pension age. That finding was never contested. The ombudsman recommended compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for each of the 3.6 million women affected. Yet, despite being forced to reconsider its original refusal, the UK Labour Government has chosen to double down. It has chosen to ignore the ombudsman, to ignore the 336,000 women here in Scotland and to show what WASPI women campaigners have rightly described as utter contempt.
Let us be clear about the scale of that injustice. In Scotland alone, almost 336,000 women were affected. Many received as little as one year’s notice of up to a six-year increase in their state pension age. Compare that to men, who had six years’ notice of a one-year rise. That is not equality or fairness; it is a failure of Government. Around 3.6 million women across the UK were affected, and the WASPI campaign estimates that at least 400,000 of them have died during the course of that long campaign. They died waiting and being denied justice.
That injustice did not happen in isolation. By their late 50s, women’s pension wealth is equivalent to just 62 per cent of men’s: there is a 38 per cent gender pension gap. Some 23 per cent of single women pensioners in Scotland live in relative poverty. Two thirds of pension credit claimants are women. Women are more likely to have had interrupted careers because they were caring for children, parents and disabled partners. In Scotland, 19 per cent of women aged 45 to 75 and over provide regular unpaid care. Many of those women were already financially vulnerable before the state pension age changed. The failure to notify them properly compounded that vulnerability and pushed many into real hardship.
I have spoken to women in the north-east—including Linda Carmichael—who have had to take on insecure work in their 60s, who burned through modest savings, who relied on food banks, who postponed retirement plans, and who felt humiliated and betrayed. These are not abstract statistics; they are our constituents—women who built our communities.
The UK Labour Government says that public finances are under pressure, but it is wholly unfair to argue that there is no case for compensation when the independent ombudsman has found that there was maladministration. Compensation will not be a windfall or a bonus; it is redress for a wrong.
Labour promised change. On WASPI, it has delivered continuity with the worst instincts of its predecessors. It has chosen to balance the books on the backs of women who were born in the 1950s. That decision is shameful, immoral and inhumane.
Justice delayed has already been justice denied for too many. The UK Government must reverse its decision, implement the ombudsman’s recommendations and provide fair compensation. WASPI women have shown real resilience and dignity; they should not have to show endless patience, too. I stand with them, and I will not stop demanding justice.
17:25
I thank Bill Kidd for securing this members’ business debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of his motion, which calls on the UK Government to reconsider its latest decision on compensation for women affected by state pension age changes. The issue is one of fairness, responsibility and respect for millions of women whose working lives were shaped by expectations created by Government policy.
More than 3.5 million women who were born in the 1950s experienced significant changes to their retirement plans following increases to the state pension age. The changes were not, in themselves, the core problem; rather, it was the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions to communicate the changes properly, in good time and in a clear and accessible way.
That failure was confirmed by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman after a lengthy and detailed investigation. As we have heard, the ombudsman found that maladministration had occurred and that it had resulted in real injustice. Many women received notification of the changes far too late to adjust their plans. As a result, they faced years of financial uncertainty, difficulties in securing employment, increased caring responsibilities and significant emotional strain. The ombudsman concluded that compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 per person was appropriate to reflect the scale and seriousness of the impact.
I do not in any way think that such debates are about playing political football. The Labour Party, which is now in government in the UK, stood with WASPI women before the election and said that it would make changes, but it reneged on that promise the minute that it came into office. That must be called out—it is a matter of trust—and every Labour Party member in the chamber and across Scotland should call it out. I know that some Labour members do. For example, my colleague Richard Leonard has been consistent in calling out the decision. He will be missed by the Labour Party when he stands down.
For many women, the consequences of the failures have been life altering. Some women postponed their retirement and remained in physically demanding work for longer than they had expected. Others struggled to re-enter the labour market after years spent caring for family members. Many faced declining health, reduced savings and increased reliance on benefits. They could not reasonably have anticipated or planned for those outcomes, given the lack of timely information.
The WASPI campaign has consistently and constructively raised those concerns, ensuring that the voices of affected women are heard. That campaign’s advocacy has been grounded in evidence, persistence and dignity. The strength of feeling that has been expressed by campaigners reflects not only frustration at the lack of resolution but a desire for recognition of the difficulties that they endured.
This is about accountability. When public bodies make mistakes, it is essential that those mistakes are acknowledged and addressed. The ombudsman exists to provide independent scrutiny, and its conclusions deserve to be treated with respect. Accepting responsibility, learning lessons and offering redress when harm occurs strengthen public trust in the Government and public institutions.
Scotland has consistently sought to uphold the principles of fairness and social justice. Many of the women affected live in our communities, contribute to our economy and support their families. They are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our grans, our aunts, our friends and our colleagues. They deserve to know that their concerns are being raised clearly and firmly in this Parliament. Our support sends an important message that their experiences matter and that their voices are respected.
That is why I wanted to speak today. I want the women affected in Coatbridge and Chryston to know that I will raise their voice and stand up for them on this issue.
This debate provides us, as a Parliament, with an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to fairness, accountability and compassion. By calling on the UK Government to reverse its decision, we stand alongside those who are seeking recognition of the hardship that they endured and acknowledge the findings of an independent authority that was established to safeguard citizens and their rights. Let us demonstrate that the Scottish Parliament will continue to advocate for fairness, and let us support the motion.
17:30
I thank Bill Kidd for securing this important debate. I also thank WASPI and Age Scotland for their briefings.
Over the years, I have been privileged to meet so many determined 1950s-born women from across Scotland who have campaigned for the pension that they deserve and that, cruelly, is out of reach because of maladministration and lack of notice about age changes to their state pension. I have met many of those inspiring women through the cross-party group on WASPI or at home in Shetland: I continue to stand with you all. Many thousands of the 336,000 women across Scotland affected by the change have been left in financial hardship. I want to be clear that, as others have said, this is about injustice to real people. It is shameful that we are in the position of having this debate after successive Governments have failed to act.
Before the 2024 general election, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s investigation found that there was maladministration in informing the women who were affected about the first changes that happened, in 1995. There was also a recommendation of compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for each of those affected.
The Conservative Party left our economy in a shambles and waited out making a decision until after the 2024 election, cynically leaving it to the incoming Labour Government to handle the matter. As has been the overarching theme of the UK Labour Government, it has U-turned on its pre-election position that it would remedy the situation. The entire process has been shambolic, with a flagrant disregard of the independent PHSO’s findings and recommendation.
Picking and choosing the findings and recommendations of an organisation whose remit is to investigate complaints about UK Government departments and other public bodies is unacceptable. Asking wronged pensioners to pay the price of Government mismanagement is disgraceful. In the current cost of living crisis, two thirds of pension credit claimants are women and around 23 per cent of single, female Scottish pensioners live in relative poverty. We know that public finances are under acute pressure, but it is not fair for the UK Government to suggest that there is no case for compensation.
According to the WASPI campaign briefing,
“The PHSO said that financial circumstances are not an excuse for not paying compensation. Compensation payments could be phased over a number of years e.g. the life of a Parliament”
and that
“Alleged financial mismanagement by previous administrations is not an excuse and the Treasury has saved £181bn by increasing women’s State Pension age”.
Had women had the facts presented to them at the time, they would have made different choices and decisions. They were living busy lives with families, friends and careers. More should have been done to provide the facts to the cohort of affected women. Now, those same women are being punished—for lack of a better word—for making decisions that made sense for them at the time and with the information that they had. Let us ask how many women gave up their jobs to look after parents. How much money did that save the state in social care costs?
There is a distinct lack of fairness in all of this. The goalposts were moved without women being informed of it. We can debate whether that would ever have happened if we were talking about another group in society, but a combination of misogyny and ageism has resulted in 1950s-born women being overlooked by the grey suits in Whitehall. It is little wonder that older women often say that they feel invisible in our society.
The irony is not lost on me that the WASPI cohort is from the generation that campaigned for women’s rights. We should not forget that the rights that women have today are in no small way due to the women who were born in the 1950s. Maternity pay and leave were not available to women who had their children in the 1960s and early 1970s.
The UK Government should act on the recommendations from the ombudsman’s findings now—not for party politics, but because it is the right thing to do.
17:34
I thank my colleague Bill Kidd for securing the debate. Since my contribution is at this late stage in the debate, there will be some repetition in it.
As has been said, according to data from the House of Commons library, it is estimated that between 331,000 and 336,000 women in Scotland have been affected by what women against state pension inequality are campaigning about. Women who were born in the 1950s—as were three of my sisters, although I am old enough not to have been caught up in this—had their state pension age raised without adequate notification. Compounding the injustice, more than 4,000 WASPI women in Scotland have died since 2020 without receiving anything. Although former UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall apologised for the 28-month delay—that is a delay of more than two years—in sending letters warning of the pension age change, she said that there was no evidence of “direct financial loss”. Well, it depends how you define “direct”.
Women had planned their finances on the basis that they would receive their state pension at 60, as I did—I paid off my mortgage. That was especially true of women who were divorced, widowed or single, who had only their own income. They discovered, out of the blue, that they had better change their plans. It is not that they objected to their pension age being equalised with that of men; it is the way that it was done that they objected to. It was done without notice and not incrementally—there was simply a cliff edge.
In its final report in March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman concluded that the DWP committed maladministration by failing to adequately communicate changes to the women’s state pension age, found that that caused injustice, including distress, and lost opportunities to plan, which I mentioned, and recommended that compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 be paid to the women affected. That is not a lot of money if a pension of several years has simply disappeared, but it was compensation only for the delay, not for pension loss. Now Labour will not pay even that small amount.
I give Anas Sarwar his due. Once upon a time, along with Labour colleagues, he said that the UK Government should pay up, but, as we know, what Labour says in here—what Anas Sarwar says—is dismissed by the UK leader. That reminds me of the words of Johann Lamont, who resigned as Labour leader in 2014, with immediate effect. She accused the UK party of treating Scotland like “a branch office” and said that she had “had enough”.
Anas Sarwar has obviously not had enough. He and Jackie Baillie have been publicly humiliated, but apparently not enough to make them follow in Johann Lamont’s footsteps. Put back in their box by Labour headquarters, lid firmly nailed down, they have betrayed the WASPI women. The images of them and Sir Keir Starmer standing shoulder to shoulder with WASPI women cannot be erased. The abandonment of the WASPI women by Labour and, before that, the Tories, after years of false promises, is a disgrace. I say to the WASPI women: don’t give up; fight for another U-turn.
17:37
I, too, thank Bill Kidd for bringing the debate to the chamber, because it is important that the Parliament has yet another debate on the betrayal of the WASPI women.
I have been a member of this Parliament for some time now, and I have witnessed many poor decisions by successive UK Governments. However, I have rarely seen such an unforgivable on-going dereliction of a Government’s basic obligation to its citizens as I have seen in the betrayal of the WASPI women. Despite the very clear view that was previously expressed—across the chamber, pretty much—yet again, we are having to call on the UK Government to account for an issue that it refuses to address.
We must reflect on the sheer magnitude of the injustice that has been meted out to the WASPI women, of whom there are more than 300,000 in Scotland. They find themselves short-changed and let down in the most unforgivable way. As Bill Kidd said, it is no wonder that frustration is turning to anger.
I want to pick up on something that Beatrice Wishart mentioned in her remarks. If what has happened to the 3.6 million WASPI women across the UK who have been impacted by the UK Government’s decisions had happened to men, might the issue have been the subject of more scrutiny in the House of Commons or more commentary in the male-dominated UK media? That is a hypothetical question, but it is an important one to consider as we continue to discuss women’s place in our society.
Recently, the First Minister and I took time to sit down with WASPI women who attended the Parliament, and I must say that their testimony was harrowing to hear. As colleagues have mentioned, many hard-working women have been suffering utterly devastating emotional and financial distress at a time in their lives when they expected to enjoy their well-deserved retirement.
From listening to his speech, I presume that Tim Eagle did not make it along to that event, which is unfortunate, because he might have learned something from it. He would have learned the basic lesson that this is not a debate about the equalisation of the pension age. That is a different debate, and it is not the injustice that the WASPI women’s campaign is fighting for. If he is looking for facts on the WASPI campaign, I very gently say to him that he should not rely on a Tory ex-DWP minister for suggestions as to where solutions might lie. I am afraid that he demonstrates his lack of knowledge on reserved and devolved powers, as well as his lack of understanding of the WASPI cause.
I am genuinely disappointed that Mercedes Villalba went down the same track with a lack of understanding about devolved issues, but I give her respect for being the one and only Labour contributor to the debate. I respect her position on the issue, which is a principled one.
Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is deeply problematic for some of our unionist colleagues to suggest that the Scottish Government should just pick up the bill for this matter, given that we have done so for other things? Where we have done that, it has been a policy choice. This is about maladministration. It is a very different situation and the UK Government should pay up.
There is an irony that the Scottish Government is often criticised for how much it spends on social security, yet some colleagues seem to be suggesting that, on this issue, we should spend more on social security. There is a lack of a joined-up argument. It is important to recognise that this is a very different situation, because we are talking about WASPI women of pensionable age. We really need to understand the devolution settlement, as well as the point about the UK Government fixing its own mistakes.
As I look around the chamber, I see that, as always, my SNP colleagues are behind me in supporting the WASPI women. We have had one Labour contributor to the debate, there are no Labour Party spokespeople taking part and I have no idea what the position of the Scottish Labour leader is on WASPI women. However, we must recognise that the Scottish Labour leader does not stand for WASPI women and that he does not stand for Scotland. His lack of comment on the WASPI cause will be there for WASPI women to judge in the May elections.
As we look forward to what can be done to help WASPI women, we must reflect on the fact that the WASPI campaign is based on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report. When the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced that the UK Government would, once again, look at the report, there was a small glimmer of hope. However, that hope faded once again, which is a genuine insult to the WASPI women, who have bravely campaigned for justice for so long. No doubt many Labour MPs, MSPs and candidates have had their pictures taken with WASPI women for many a year. The women can now see what happens when Labour gets into power, and they will judge Labour accordingly.
The Scottish Government has consistently supported the WASPI campaign, and we will continue to call on the UK Government to provide appropriate compensation to affected women. As Bill Kidd and Jamie Hepburn have said, women already face an unfair, unequal and uphill battle, whether with the gender pay gap or the inequality in pension savings, which other colleagues have mentioned. The last thing that any woman needs is a UK Government that adds to the challenges that they face.
I have once again written to the Minister for Pensions to express my deep disappointment at last month’s decision. I urged him to reconsider the UK Government’s position, and I outlined the Scottish Government’s continued support for WASPI women. Our support will continue, because the urgency of the situation is plain to see—well, it is certainly plain to see from my perspective.
The shameful truth, as colleagues have mentioned, is that too many women have already died waiting for these wrongs to be put right. That is an unacceptable position, yet it goes on. It has gone on for far too long, and the motion sets out clearly that the time for change is now, that WASPI women must be compensated, that justice must be done and that the WASPI women deserve nothing less.
Meeting closed at 17:44.
Air ais
Decision Time