Meeting of the Parliament 01 May 2024
I welcome the opportunity to debate the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendations.
As deputy convener of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on WASPI, I recognise the hard work of all those who have been involved in the campaign. In case it is not obvious, I should confess that I am a 1950s woman, too.
I have friends and family—as I am sure colleagues across the chamber do—who have been affected by the decision to increase the state pension age. As the First Minister said, it was never about the equalisation, but about how it was done. There is a distinct feeling that a lack of fairness is involved, and a sense that the goalposts were moved without women being informed. We can debate whether that would ever have happened if we were talking about another group in society, but a combination of misogyny and ageism resulted in older women being overlooked by grey suits in Whitehall. It is little wonder, therefore, that older women feel invisible in our society.
The term “WASPI” quickly became a catch-all for all the various groups that have campaigned about the lack of notice with regard to increasing the state pension. The WASPI campaigners have only ever asked for fairness and for injustices to be rectified. Sadly, some of those campaigners have passed away and will not see the justice that they sought.
The irony is not lost that WASPI women are from the generation that campaigned for women’s rights. We should not forget that the rights that women have today are, in no small way, due to the women who were born in the 1950s. Maternity pay and maternity leave were not available to women who had their children in the 1960s and early 1970s, and when they came to retirement, some women made decisions about their future, such as offering childcare for grandchildren, only to find, cruelly, that financially they would not be able to do so. They have had to continue to work or take additional part-time, often low-paid jobs simply to survive the years when they thought that they would have their state pension.
Close the Gap’s briefing reminds us that there is a “gendered” element to pension inequality. Women are likely to take on more caring responsibilities, with interruptions in their careers, which reduces their opportunities to contribute to pension savings. Women are living longer and are more likely to live in poverty after retirement, with less savings than men. Close the Gap highlights that
“Two-thirds ... of pensioners in poverty are women, and half of pensioners in poverty are single women”.
I am quite sure that WASPI women know the reality of that.
The ombudsman’s report has been a long time coming, and the process needs to be moved along to ensure that those who are affected finally get compensation. I urge the UK Government to act on the ombudsman’s report, and I encourage whichever party forms the next Government after the general election to make the issue a priority. It should be remembered that this will not simply involve an outgoing from the Treasury—there will be returns to local economies and national taxes from compensation payments.
The 1950s women whom we have been talking about were among the first to vote at 18. They saw several waves of feminism and new protections under legislation, yet, as working citizens, they were let down by the state. It is past time to rectify that injustice.