The government has once again rejected calls to compensate Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women over state pension age increases, saying the solutions proposed are “unaffordable” and “cannot be justified”.
Speaking in the House of Commons, pensions minister Guy Opperman (pictured) said proposals put forward to compensate a certain group of women adversely affected by the hike to their state pension age would be too costly.
Speaking about proposals to compensate the women, Opperman said: “The only alternative is to ask the working generation to pay an even larger share of its income to support pensioners. I believe that successive governments have made appropriate but difficult decisions to equalise and increase the state pension age.”
The WASPI campaign began in 2015 and challenges changes to the state pension age for women, first made in the 1995 Pensions Act and later accelerated in 2011 – it argues the reforms placed an unfair burden on hundreds of thousands of women born in the 1950s.
AJ Bell senior analyst Tom Selby suggested the WASPI campaign’s only hope is a Jeremy Corbyn led government.
“Time and again opposition politicians have desperately tried to lever concessions out of the government in relation to the women’s state pension age, and time and again the government has refused to budge an inch,” he said.
“It seems clear the WASPI campaign’s only hope for salvation now rests on Jeremy Corbyn becoming the next Prime Minister.”
He continued: “Labour’s manifesto pledges to extend Pension Credit to the most vulnerable women affected by the changes and explore transitional options. While it remains unclear what these transitional arrangements might look like, it seems unlikely they will meet the WASPI demand of a ‘bridging pension’ until state pension age.
“The Work and Pensions Committee’s suggestion that those affected should be able to access the state pension early and at a lower rate merits serious consideration, but it seems a government mired in Brexit wrangling is unwilling to consider even this relatively modest, cost neutral change at the moment.”
“Despite this latest blow, recent history suggests the WASPI campaign will continue to make noise and rattle cages in Westminster,” he added.
The government has previously come under fire for suggesting WASPI women look into apprenticeships.
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