He added: “It now seems increasingly likely if any compensation is to be paid, it will be under a new government after a general election.
“If polling is to be believed, that is likely to be Labour, meaning it could be shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves who is ultimately left with the headache of whether to implement the ombudsman’s findings and, if she does, how to find the billions of pounds of cash needed to fund compensation payouts.”
The women’s state pension issue
Before 2010 women received their state pension from age 60, while men had to wait until 65.
The 1995 Pensions Act put forward proposals to increase the women’s state pension age to 65 – bringing it in line with men – between 2010 and 2020.
The 2011 Pensions Act accelerated this timetable, meaning the state pension ages of men and women were equalised at age 65 in 2018 before increasing to age 66 by 2020.
But campaigners argued this was unfair to women born in the 1950s as they had to wait longer to receive the state pension.
According to the Waspi campaign group, these women were given little to no notice of the increase causing many to be left in financial hardship.
In 2019 Waspi campaigners sought a judicial review against the changes on the grounds they had been discriminated against on the grounds of age and sex - but the High Court dismissed the claim on all grounds and an appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
The campaigners sought to take their case to the Supreme Court in 2020 but they were refused leave to appeal further because the claim was not made within the time limit.
In July 2021, the PHSO published results of its investigation into the issue, which found in 2005 the DWP failed to make a reasonable decision about targeting information to the women affected by these changes which the PHSO deemed was 'maladministration’.
It also found in 2006, the DWP proposed writing to women individually to tell them about changes to state pension age but it failed to act promptly also deemed ‘maladministration’.
amy.austin@ft.com
