

A decision not to award compensation to the Waspi women will be reconsidered by the government because of undisclosed “evidence”, the Work and Pensions Secretary has said.
Waspi women – Women Against State Pensions Inequality – are women born in the 1950s who say they were not given sufficient warning of the state pension age for women being lifted to be in line with men – from 60 to 65.
They have long argued that this was done too quickly, leaving some women financially unprepared to cope with the number of years when they were no longer able to claim their state pension.
The government said in December that they would not be compensated, because most women knew the changes were coming.
But Pat McFadden told the Commons on Tuesday: “Since then, as part of the legal proceedings challenging the government’s decision, evidence has been cited about research findings from a 2007 report.”
This evidence relates to an evaluation of the effectiveness of automatic Pension Forecast Letters.
Mr McFadden said: “In light of this, and in the interest of fairness and transparency, I have concluded that the government should now consider this evidence. This means we will retake the decision made last December as it relates to the communications on State Pension age.”
Around 3.6 million women were impacted by the change to the state pension age. The government has previously said compensating them could cost £10.5bn.
Mr McFadden stressed that reviewing the decision should not be taken as an indication that the government will “decide that it should award financial redress”.
The Liberal Democrats said the review is “a first step in the right direction” and the government “must work without any further dither and delay to put things right”.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the latest version.
You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
Source link