Meeting of the Parliament 21 January 2025
Like the two previous speakers, I welcome the WASPI women to Parliament today, as I did last Wednesday, when Kenny Gibson led an excellent debate in which we heard testimony from MSPs on all sides of the chamber, across the parties, about the work that they have being doing on behalf of their constituents for many years.
I have mentioned in previous WASPI debates the efforts of Sheila Forbes in Moray, who was the first person to contact me about the issue, long before I was elected, when I was a candidate. She brought together a group of affected people in Moray who have were fighting for justice and continue to do so to this day, because they certainly do not feel that they have received it from the UK Labour Government. I accept that they also have major criticisms of previous Conservative and Labour Governments and of the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition Government.
At the heart of what we are debating today is the PHSO’s report and the role of the PHSO. I looked at the PHSO’s website this week. It states:
“We independently investigate complaints about UK government departments ... We believe complaints have the power to reveal the truth, create lasting change and inspire a better relationship between people and public services.”
That is crucial, and it goes to the heart of what we are debating today. Taking the politics out of the issue and looking at it independently, the PHSO has said that there was “maladministration”—not, perhaps, for everyone, but for a significant cohort of women who did not receive the notification that they deserved and who should, as a result, be compensated.
Back in May last year, when we debated the issue, I agreed that the PHSO’s recommendations, which at that time had just gone to the UK Conservative Government, should be considered in full, including the question of compensation. We then went into the general election campaign, in which probably every single Labour candidate in Scotland and across the United Kingdom was urging people to vote for them to deliver on the PHSO recommendations, to address the injustice, to change things in the Department for Work and Pensions and across the UK Government, and to deliver that compensation.
In the Labour Administration’s first six months, however, it dealt the WASPI campaigners a very bitter blow. It said, “Well, we do think that you have suffered maladministration and we will say sorry, but we will not pay you for that.” I think that that is indefensible. I say in all fairness to Paul O’Kane—whom I like, and who is a very experienced parliamentarian—that that is why he has struggled in the debate today. I cannot listen to what he, on one hand, is saying about the Scottish Labour position and what its members are doing to fight for their constituents and for the cause when, on the other hand, his Secretary of State for Work and Pensions at the UK level, Liz Kendall, said this—