WASPI women are urging MPs to take action over a historic state pension “injustice” as the recommended compensation payout “is a bit on the low side”.
Angela Madden, chair of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign, appeared before the Work and Pensions Committee earlier today.
She appeared alongside WASPI campaign director Jane Cowley, chair of the APG on State Pension Inequality Rebecca Long-Bailey MP and the group’s co-chair Peter Aldous MP.
Madden called on Parliament to act following a landmark report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) earlier this year.
Thousands of women could be in line for compensation after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to adequately inform them the state pension age had changed, the PHSO found.
The ombudsman recommended that women born in the 1950s should be awarded a Level 4 compensation payout which is between £1,000 and £2,950.
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WASPI campaigners are calling on MPS to act following the PHSO’s report
GETTY / PARLIAMENT
However, this is a far cry from the £10,000 amount that campaigners had previously called for from the Government.
Furthermore, the Government has yet to put forward a compensation package in place for those affected by the historic state pension changes.
Madden explained: “We’ve never campaigned for anything other than some sort of compensation for what we saw as the failures of the DWP so we are pleased by the report.
“It identified that there was maladministration. It identified that the remedy should be compensation.
“It’s also laid the report before Parliament which we are really happy with because we feel Parliament is the right place for that decision to be made. The level suggested in the report we think is on the low side.”
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