{"id":728541,"date":"2026-01-29T12:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T12:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728541\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T12:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T12:24:10","slug":"ministers-reject-waspi-calls-for-compensation-after-rethink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728541\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers reject Waspi calls for compensation after rethink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The government has kicked the can down the road for months, only to arrive at exactly the same conclusion it has always wanted to,&#8221; said Angela Madden, who chairs the group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is a disgraceful political choice by a small group of very powerful people who have decided the harm and injustice suffered by millions of ordinary women simply does not matter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government said the vast majority of 1950s-born women already knew the state pension age was increasing, thanks to a wide range of public information, including through leaflets, education campaigns, in GP surgeries, on TV and radio, in cinemas, and online.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Others, however, said they were unaware of the changes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2024, a parliamentary ombudsman recommended compensation of between \u00a31,000 and \u00a32,950 each for those affected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) could recommend compensation, it could not enforce it and the government rejected it.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The emergence of a 2007 survey, which had not been handed to then Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, prompted a review of the government&#8217;s decision, with Kendall&#8217;s successor Pat McFadden promising to check no other documents had been overlooked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Now, the government has said a flat-rate compensation scheme for those affected would &#8220;cost up to \u00a310.3bn and would simply not be right or fair given it would be paid to the vast majority who were aware of the changes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More individual compensation &#8220;would not be practical to set up&#8221;, it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;The government has kicked the can down the road for months, only to arrive at exactly the same&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,2499,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-728541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115978375138334549","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}