No payout for WASPI women

[ErrolTheDragon]

Fury as women hit by pension age rise denied payouts www.bbc.com/news/articles/czr36842nd6o

Wow... it hadn't occurred to me that the ombudsman report on this would just be ignored.

Yes, we have plenty of money for some things

To the very few who genuinely didn't know, perhaps.

But how would you establish who genuinely didn't know? And is it really in the public interest to reward people for being out of touch and ill-informed?

I thought it was ridiculous they thought compensation was required in the first place. Everyone knew the changes were coming; you'd have had to be living under a rock not to. Equality and all. Labour only backed the idea for votes as the underdog party at the time.

None of the above, aside from wars, comes to anything like £10.3 billion, plus Doctors are essential.

So feel free to suggest how you would raise this amount of money?

The rise from 60 to 65 was publicised; the further rise to 66 ( with short notice) was not.

Where do you think that pot of money would come from to pay the >£10 billion required? From us, the taxpayers!

It's a shit use of public funds.

The vast, vast majority of women were aware for years that the state pension age was increasing - it was practically shouted from the rooftops! Adverts, endless news coverage, all sorts.

It's such a poor use of taxpayers' money to compensate all women within a certain age range despite most of them knowing about the changes for years!

Some will have known about both , how do you work out who would be paid what ?

T.May supported the Waspi woman but once in Govt and then PM, said NO.

If its good enough for the Tories to change their minds, which btw it is, then its good for Labour too, situations change, policies change.

I note you don't answer how you would raise this £10 billion, perhaps we could tax education? thoughts?

Seriously, £10billion to our armed forces is whats needed as a bare minimum.

During such hard times you can’t expect young working people to hand their tax over to older people who have had far better opportunities than they ever will. Our young people can’t get affordable housing , a Gp appt and they are faced with climate change - none of their doing. I agree with the stance on this.

The problem with the triple lock is that it is unsustainable in the long term. Whatever the merits were of introducing it in the first place, it is going to turn into a game of chicken for successive governments, because whichever party abolishes it will be on end receiving end of vitriol that will make the WFA arguments look like a vicarage tea party.

Since the triple lock was introduced, there have been 14 revisions of the state pension. Of those, four were based on the average earnings clause, six on RPI/CPI inflation, and four on the "minimum 2.5%" clause. (Source: This parliamentary report [PDF] through 2023, plus the BBC website for this year's numbers.)

So in 10 of those 14 years, the burden on earners/taxpayers to pay those pensions went up faster than the wages on which their ability to pay was based. You can't keep doing that for ever.

@samarrange basic state pension isn't high though even with those increases

I understand a conversation needs to be had about pensions because it's a huge bill but there will be people who can't make other provisions and the current rate isn't high

Plus I don't get the get the pensioners in pp, not from you, each of us should we be lucky will be a pensioner at some point. Just hitting that group can be easier politics, no strikes or unions, but they are vulnerable to changes too

None of the above, aside from wars, comes to anything like £10.3 billion, plus Doctors are essential. So feel free to suggest how you would raise this amount of money?

I think this is the point really. Our public services are stripped to the bone and we have the highest tax bill in decades. Where is the money going to come from?

Young people have had goal posts moved constantly throughout their lives so I can understand why they'll have little sympathy. Uni fees trebled overnight and now interest rates on student loans have gone up 4 or 5 times. They're just expected to put up and shut up about it.

What do you think the SP should be ?

I think Labour thought they would be perpetually in opposition so it was very easy for them to make promises and back campaigns without fully thinking through the financial implications.

Sure. But there are ways to put up the pension to a target level that are not open-ended. For example, they could have said 0.5% above earnings or 1% above CPI, limited to 10 years, to expire automatically. As things stand, it's a potential monster over say 30 years, even without shifting demographics, and someone will have to address it, even though it's a big political hot potato.

If I was starting out today I would be trying to put a lot aside for my retirement, because the only other thing that can give is the retirement age (already 67 in the Netherlands, going up to 67¼ in 2028 and probably 67½ by 2032).

@Thisiswhathings I haven't given it much thought but I don't think £11,500 is too much

The triple lock sounds like increases are high but we're still at a place where the pension is pretty low

https://x.com/Suffragent_/status/1869051768782614709

Angela Rayner promising to 'right that injustice' - 'we will compensate them for the money that they've lost - this is their money that they've had stolen off them and it's completely unacceptable and any government, any government, should act responsibly to these women'.

I’m a Waspi and although I’m disappointed in Keir Starmer I’m not surprised. He said it was a great injustice in opposition; now it’s unaffordable. Although I don’t agree with means testing it’s a disgrace that at least the poorest women aren’t being compensated.

Wow. When is that video from?

It’s completely unsurprising. No idea why waspi women thought they’d be treated specially. They’re not even paying compensation to the victims of child sexual abuse in government run and funded child homes because the law says they’d have to file after conviction of the abuser but also before age 21 and within 3 months of arrest - good luck getting anyone convicted within those margins! The very idea that the government would care that some women never bothered to look up new retirement ages over their forty years of working and didn’t realise their retirement age had gone up is not their fault.

I don't know, no reference on it.

There you go. They need to be called out on this. Absolutely appalling.

Does anyone have the figures for how much money the government saved by increasing women's retirement age & then accelerating that increase so that some of us had a double increase - the first expected, the second not? I'd be interested to see that figure set against the 3 1/2 to 10 1/2 billion.

Here tis.

2019

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1989960/angela-rayner-waspi-promise-broken

Thanks.