Pensions ( Waspies)

[Moier]

Quote: 'Did you know when I was 16, the government made an agreement with me, that if I paid National Insurance every week, they would give me a pension when I was 60
I kept my end of the deal and am still paying in!!
On the 5th and 6th of June, the UK Government may be made to give back the right to retire at 60 to all those women who worked and paid their National Insurance.
Currently their pension payout is delayed until 66 or 67 depending on date of birth.
We all know that the pension age for women born in the sixties has been raised. Did you know a campaign called ‘Back to 60 Movement’ has won the right to a Judicial Review and is taking the DWP to the High Court? On the 5th and 6th June they will attempt to get women justice over non consultation in raising the pensionable age to 66 and above.
Michael Mansfield QC will lead the case and the argument for the movement. However, there does not appear to be any media coverage regarding this significant event. That is why we’re raising the awareness now. Let's hope for justice rightly deserved.
There appears to be a media blackout on this issue, which suggests that the government have put a block on the media reporting it. So let’s use social media for what it’s good at - share the hell out of this.

The waspi campaign is asking for the maximum, which would be £10 billion.

@Brahumbug That would be strategic? Aim high expecting a counter offer would be low. The government needs to do 'something' rather than nothing due to the DWP's failures in communication which the PHSO refer to as "maladministration". MP's were unanimous on the bill's first hearing - all voted in favour of the PHSO's recommendations. And I'm sure EVERYONE will have seen both Starmer and Reeves campaigning on behalf of WASPI's prior to the general election?

And I'm sure EVERYONE will have seen both Starmer and Reeves campaigning on behalf of WASPI's prior to the general election?

Perhaps everyone didn't, after all it seems possible for there to be a major change to the law around retirement pensions that will materially affect your financial future and not know.

@Uricon2 LOADS of images of both Starmer & Reeves backing the WASPI campaign - you can see a handful of them here:- https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-shadow-minister-refuse-waspi-support-2970844

Irrelevant. The commitments of any party are what are in the election manifesto. There was no commitment to paying compensation and given the financial mess we are in, there more important priorities.

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1989918/Starmer-has-just-done-to-Waspi-women-what-he-s-done-to-the-rest-of-the-country

@Brahumbug I'm aware it wasn't in their manifesto and I didn't vote for them however it illustrates how obviously disingenuous a party is when they campaign so vociferously on an issue and then do a complete u-turn. They are throwing BILLIONS at a number of projects - carbon capture for example which has been proven not to work . "Labour’s carbon-capture scheme will be Starmer’s white elephant: a terrible mistake costing billions." "The supposedly green project – brainchild of the previous Tory government – will increase emissions, not reduce them." So NEVER believe ANY government when they say they don't have the money - we've been hearing that old chestnut for decades. A government looks after its people first, projects (especially white elephant ones) take SECOND place to doing the rightful moral thing.

Carbon capture has been shown not to work? And your peer reviewed source for this is what? Carbon capture is new technology still in development, but even if developed it will not be a solution to the net zero problem, merely an aid. The daily express is not a rag I would quote to support any argument, given their complete disconnect from the truth. None of which changes the fact there are higher priorities than paying compensation to waspis. My mother is in the waspi age group and she is perplexed by the women claiming they need nothing about it, she even warned me in the 90s about the changes. The waspi campaign leadership has been particularly dishonest in misleading it's followers about what they will receive. The site is full of stories of women saying they have lost £40,000 or £50,000 in pension and there want compensation for it, all of which is utter nonsense.

@Brahumbug
Just Google CCS. Green energy is already much cheaper than fossil fuels: "Professor Doyne Farmer, from Oxford University, observes: “There is a pervasive misconception that switching to clean, green energy will be painful, costly and mean sacrifices for us all – but that’s just wrong...Completely replacing fossil fuels with clean energy by 2050 will save us trillions.”
So far, most CCS projects in the energy sector have been abandoned, and the few that do exist - like Boundary Dam in Canada and Petra Nova in the US - have struggled with chronic underperformance, technical issues, and rising costs.
James Dyke, associate professor in earth system science, University of Exeter, warns that the quest to remain under 1.5 degrees is “becoming detached from reality as it is increasingly relying on science fiction levels of speculative technology".
https://theecologist.org/2025/feb/19/labours-deluded-carbon-capture-gamble

"An analysis by Oxford University’s Smith School shows that a heavy reliance on CCS massively increases the costs of cutting emissions. By contrast to other technologies such as solar, wind and batteries, its costs have not fallen at all in 40 years." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/labour-carbon-capture-climate-breakdown."

All of which reinforce my point that carbon capture is not a solution to net zero, merely a potential tool to assist with carbon reduction. The main problem is that people will think carbon capture is a substitute for actually reducing carbon emissions.

@Brahumbug
Exactly! HUGELY expensive so if shelved that money would easily pay WASPI (mid level 4) and still have a good chunk left over to invest on a GENUINE environmental scheme.

It should have been set at 63 for both men and women , a halfway compromise

The bottom line is that I don't think they should be compensated. Far to many have jumped on the bandwagon claiming they new nothing about it when there was a sniff of money. Even my mother is appalled at the number of women in her social group who are now claiming they new nothing and want compensation, despite previously acknowledging the increase in pension age. Only those who can demonstrate that they have suffered loss through maladministration should even be considered.

So presumably you would also have been against the Equal Pay Act taking effect for all women?

I take it that you think equal pay for equal work between the sexes should only have applied to those younger women and girls who were yet to join the workforce - and those already working should not have been allowed to expect equal pay with men, when they knew all along since they started working that women were paid much less than men for the same work; and that was just the 'fairly' agreed (and so unchangeable) way that it was?

Then what about all the demands for compensation from the very large group of older men who would claim they had been discriminated against in being forced to wait until 65?

@Brahumbug It's not about whether they knew about it though, although I didn't - it's about governmental "maladministration."
Some were poor women, some were rich women, some were 'just about managing' women.
All those women were disadvantaged - made poorer by the DWP.

In cases of wrong doing there must be consequences or the perpetrator will not stop wrong doing.
It could be a very small gesture but it needs to be something rather than nothing.

But they weren't made poorer. Maladministration was just not letting them know in a timely fashion during a 20 month window. I and many other women object to them being compensated for having retire at an age we can only dream of. My state pension age is currently 67, but it will undoubtedly increase in the coming years and will probably reach 70.

I don't think the appropriate remedy for "maladministration" should be cancelling the whole thing for these women and making life even harder for the people who are a few years younger than the "waspie" cutoff. The changes were important and necessary. It is accepted that they were communicated badly. Affected women should have an apology but should not expect to have thousands of pounds extra money when the thing that wasn't communicated properly is that those thousands of pounds are simply unaffordable.

@Brahumbug But the PHSO compensation is solely about the DWP "maladministration" - nothing else. The PHSO state that they should be compensated for DWP failings.

@RatedDoingMagic "In cases of wrong doing there must be consequences or the perpetrator will not stop wrong doing.
It could be a very small gesture but it needs to be something rather than nothing."
PHSO Level 4 is not "thousands of pounds" but £1,250-£3,700.

And whilst many might disagree with the Ombudsman, those who do did not spend six years investigating it with their legal team.

PHSO Level 4 is not "thousands of pounds" but £1,250-£3,700

Um if you don't think £3,700 (or even £2,000) is "thousands of pounds" then you have a serious problem understanding numbers.

A £50-£100 token gesture would be more appropriate.

A lot of the hostility to the WASPI campaign on here just reads like sour grapes - you know, "well i can't retire until I'm 70 and I'm fucking miserable so why should anyone else get anything", that sort of mentality.

@RatedDoingMagic £50 - £100 is an appropriate remedy when a bank's website goes down for an hour - not when a group of people are found to have suffered a particular injustice under a government department which is supposedly there to protect them. Anyone arguing that a legal team who worked on the case for six years might have a serious case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

@Kreisler Absolutely - it beggars belief. I see a lot of people commenting on here AND on Instagram who have zero understanding of what the compensation is even for.