Meeting of the Parliament 21 January 2025
I have to say to the member that, in a spirit of consensus, I am trying to make points relating to the PHSO report, and the PHSO has outlined a number of recommendations. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice is shaking her head, but this is what is in the report. There are a number of options—either looking at a flat rate of compensation, which I will come on to, or looking at individual circumstances. The PHSO report deals solely with maladministration and is not looking at the wider issues of detriment. That is something that we debated under the previous First Minister, when we had debates and discussions on this topic and on trying to design a system—crucially, in conjunction with WASPI women—that can seek to give the redress that is required to a person because of their individual circumstances.
As I have said, and as I am trying to outline to members, I have spoken with many different WASPI women who have had different experiences. Their experience of maladministration and the injustice towards them has been different, and they often have different views of how recompense should be made. Therefore, it is important that we look at all of the ombudsman’s recommendations and try to arrive at a system that will, in particular, allow us to address those who have had the most detriment to them in terms of that maladministration.
I recognise that many women, often from lower-income backgrounds, were at greater risk of being adversely affected by that maladministration, and I believe that they were put at a disadvantage because of the late notice that they received. Indeed, that position is explicitly recognised in the report, in paragraphs 495 to 498, which set out that
“Not all women born in the 1950s will have suffered an injustice because of DWP’s maladministration in communicating”
the pension age but that it is likely that there will be
“a significant number of women born in the 1950s who have ... suffered injustice because of maladministration in DWP’s communication about the 1995 Pensions Act.”