WASPI ultimatum issued as fury over missing DWP compensation grows | Personal Finance | Finance
The WASPI (Women against state pension inequality) campaign has gained ground as a Parliamentary committee has backed its calls for compensation.
The Work and Pensions Committee has this week (May 15) called on the Government to set out proposals for compensation for the WAPSI generation of women.
The group of MPs has urged ministers to put forward a plan before the summer recess, which starts at July 23.
Committee members will also be questioning pensions secretary Mel Stride aobut the issue, as well as DWP Permanent Secretary, Philip Schofield, on May 22.
Sir Stephen Timms MP, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, said: “The debate over the impact of the DWP’s failure to communicate increases in the women’s state pension age has dragged on for too long and it is time the Government took action to resolve the issue.
“There is no perfect solution, but there would seem to be broad support for a rules-based system of compensation with a degree of flexibility for cases where women have experienced direct financial loss.
“While the Ombudsman has put the matter in the hands of Parliament, a remedy can only happen with the support of the Government and we hope Ministers will move quickly to bring forward its proposal before the summer.”
The committee has also penned a letter to Mr Stride setting out what levels of compensation could look like.
The letter states this could include varying levels of payment depending on each person’s state pension age and how much notice of change they received.
The committee has also told Mr Stride there should be some flexibility for individual WASPI women to make a case for higher levels of compensation if they experienced “direct financial loss”.
The latest action comes after members of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and WASPI campaign chiefs appeared before the committee last week.
Angela Madden, chair of the WASPI campaign, told Express.co.uk previously: “We’re going to put as much pressure as we can now to have this properly debated in Parliament.
“The Ombudsman put this before Parliament. They know that Parliament has to resolve it. It has to be all MPs speaking on behalf of all their constituents.
“There has to be a balance between today’s taxpayers and yesterday’s victims, but that goes for all the issues that the Government has to solve.
“They can’t just get it catastrophically wrong and walk away. We have MPs from all parties that are very supportive.”
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