{"id":298202,"date":"2025-12-04T08:04:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/298202\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T08:04:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:04:31","slug":"uk-government-agrees-to-reconsider-waspi-compensation-within-12-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/298202\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Government agrees to reconsider Waspi compensation within 12 weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Women Against State Pension Inequality<\/a> (Waspi) group said the UK Government<\/a> agreed a \u201cspeedy and thorough\u201d reconsideration of whether to award them compensation, and that a planned hearing will now not take place on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n

\n A special hearing had been due to take place regarding concerns from Waspi campaigners, which would decide whether a judicial review trial slated for December 9 and 10 should proceed.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE: ‘Disappointed’: Glasgow Film Theatre faces funding loss from city council<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n The group of women, who were affected by the way changes to the state pension age were communicated, said a UK Government agreement means these court dates have been cancelled.\n<\/p>\n

\n Women born in the 1950s saw their state pension age raised so it would be equal with men.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ministers have committed to make \u201cbest endeavours\u201d to reconsider potential compensation within 12 weeks, or by February 24, and to pay more than half of Waspi\u2019s legal costs, the group said.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ministers said last month that the Government will reconsider the decision to not award compensation to the affected women.\n<\/p>\n

\n Last year, a report by the Parliamentary and Health<\/a> Service Ombudsman (PHSO) suggested compensation ranging between \u00a31000 and \u00a32950 could be appropriate for each of those affected.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"WaspiWaspi campaigners in Westminster (Image: Stefan Rousseau)\n<\/p>\n

\n But in December 2024, the Government said that, while it accepted the ombudsman\u2019s finding of maladministration and apologised for a delay in writing to 1950s-born women, a blanket compensation scheme, which could cost taxpayers up to \u00a310.5 billion, could not be justified.\n<\/p>\n

\n Then-pension secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons<\/a> at the time that the proposed payment scheme was not \u201cfair or value for taxpayers\u2019 money\u201d.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n However, recent court proceedings led to the rediscovery of a 2007 Department for Work and Pensions evaluation<\/a> which led to officials stopping sending automatic pension forecast letters.\n<\/p>\n

\n The group has argued that a lack of sufficient information led to women planning their finances based on incorrect understandings, which has left them having to work longer or facing financial hardship.\n<\/p>\n

\n They said the judicial review will not take place while the Government reconsiders its compensation decision, but it could relaunch the process at a later date.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE: King urged to strip Scottish salmon firm of royal warrant over \u00a3130k debt<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n Angela Madden, chairwoman of Waspi, said: \u201cYet again, Waspi has held its nerve and yet again, virtually at the steps of the court, the Government has backed down, this time accepting last year\u2019s decision denying the huge injustice suffered by Waspi women simply does not withstand scrutiny.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cToday\u2019s agreement on speedy and thorough reconsideration is welcome.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut the Government should be in no doubt that Waspi stands ready to return to court if it yet again fails to do the right thing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n We told how earlier this year SNP<\/a> Westminster<\/a> leader Stephen Flynn<\/a>‘s Waspi compensation bill was blocked from being given a second reading.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n And, the UK Government was accused of \u201cwaiting for the Waspi generation to die\u201d to avoid paying out compensation.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n The campaign’s website sets out that 397,163 Waspi women have died since 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) group said the UK Government agreed a \u201cspeedy and thorough\u201d reconsideration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-298202","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-personalfinance","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}