Goverment looking at compensation for WASPI women after new evidence

I knew about the change and expected to carry on working until 65- as things turned out that didn’t happen but I was ok managing on my private pension.
It was the jump to 66 that I found tough.

I knew my private pension would reduce when I became entitled to my state pension, but as that was based on receiving the state pension at 65, not 66, I had a year of reduced income.
I did manage to save enough to pay for my ‘Gap year’ but it was hard going.

I wish back in my twenties when we were opted out I had taken more notice about the impact it would have later on.

Things may have varied all round as to what one got told by employer and/or union.

Yes, I agree CariadAgain
Even employers like Local Government, the Civil Service and the NHS weren't above being economical with the truth or treating women like second-class citizens as far as pensions were concerned years ago.
Money paid into the Civil Service or Local Government Pension Schemes was "generously" repaid as a gratuity upon marriage or as a 'baby bonus'.

Linked to this I can also remember, back in the 70s when I was newly married, being advised by a couple of older women in the office to make sure I paid for the full National Insurance stamp and not the reduced married women’s one, as the latter would impact negatively on my state pension in the future.
I think the idea at the time was that women would be able to claim on their husband’s contribution for their own state pension.

I took notice of the advice and was glad I did.

This is the latest from David Hencke who has written extensively about how equalisation was maladministered by the DWP.

13 November 2025 Exclusive: 50s women: Details revealed of the damning buried DWP report that derailed Pat McFadden

davidhencke.com/2025/11/13/exclusive-50s-women-details-revealed-of-the-damning-buried-dwp-report-that-derailed-pat-mcfadden/

Extract:

The 18 year old research report that derailed work and pension secretary Pat Mc Fadden and forced him to review his decision to pay nothing in compensation to 3.6 million 50s born women is a comprehensive and damning document. No wonder he didn’t go into details in his Parliamentary statement this week on what the Labour government then did not do to inform the women and the first cohort of men who faced a rise in the pension age.

There’s a link at the bottom to the report: Evaluation of Automatic State Pension Forecasts which were issued between December 2004 and December 2006.

Automatic Pension Forecasts (APFs) were sent out in tranches to different segments of the population, in the following order: • women aged 50-59; • men aged 50-64; • women aged 20-49; • men aged 20-49 - and followed up with a telephone interviews conducted between May 2005 and September 2006.

The oldest women affected by equalisation were born on or after 6 April 1950 so the oldest when the interviews started would have been 55.

The report is long but key is the chart on page 56. Age at which State Pension can be drawn, by age and gender

You will see that of women age 40-49, 38% thought they would draw their SP at 60. Of women age 50- 59, 70% thought they would draw their SP at 60.

[I was 49 in December 2004 and would have been between 49 or 51 had I received an APF or call to interview. Neither happened. I am meticulous about record keeping. Had I had an APF and interview it would be there in my files. It does not surprise me that I was missed. I was widowed in early 2007. When I claimed widow’s bereavement payments, the Pension Service claimed to have no record of my late husband having paid NIC although he had done so for 40 years with two very large household-name employers. I had to fight them for a whole year to get the 12 months of help I was entitled to, while they claimed repeatedly that my husband had never paid any NIC, that there was no record of him under his name or NINo. Imagine how distressing it was to be dealing with the administration of his estate and his possessions, to have a government department telling me that, as far as they were concerned, he hadn’t existed. Despite eventually paying me the bereavement benefits to which I was entitled (after my MP intervened) they refused to explain why they could not find his records. During that time, they send me a letter to say my pension age was 60. I have that on my file. In the first PHSO report, it clearly states that in 2007 the DWP’s customer information systems (CIS) were incomplete.That may explain why my husband’s records could not be found and why I, who shares his name, was not sent an APF. A general information leaflet BB1 (Bereavement Benefits) also sent to me (imprint March 2007) clearly states that men’s SPA is 65 and women’s SPA is 60. It makes no reference at all to the changes that were legislated in 1995 and then only three years away from implementation.]

I note that Henke says about the ministerial churn at the DWP during this time but then, like most departments, it has long been the case. I count no less than 11 Ministers during the crucial years 1995 to 2010 including the appalling Ian Duncan Smith. Ros Altmann, Pensions Minister under IDS was explicitly told to ignore the WASPI campaign. After his resignation, Altmann claimed she had been silenced, that he had been obstructive regarding the issue, at which point she began to publicly support the cause.

Turning to the later of the PHSO’s reports and the maladminstration by the DWP:

www.ombudsman.org.uk/sites/default/files/Women%E2%80%99s-State-Pension-age-our-findings-on-injustice-and-associated-issues.pdf

the most damning paragraph for me is this:

513. The evidence points to a systemic failure in how DWP responds to what research and feedback is telling it.

DWP were already aware of similar data about pension age awareness from a 2004 report - which I linked to upthread. In other words, the DWP repeatedly commissioned surveys which came to the same conclusions, that there were still very high numbers of women who did not know that their pension age was changing.

And yet because of internal issues at the DWP, they still did nothing to tell women individually until 2009, just a year before the first women were affected. I never received a letter. Again, it would be on my file. The first PHSO report clearly states there were never any plans to tell women born after May 1955 as I was.

I have long since come to the conclusion that I had fallen into some kind of void as far as DWP record keeping is concerned despite having only ever worked for three (again) very large household-name employers over 50 years. When I was invited to claim SP in 2021, four months before my 66th birthday, it took DWP eight months to process the claim - wrongly. It took another three years of requests before they would explain how my pension had been calculated. It’s still wrong due to a gross error in drafting the new state pension legislation which the minister at the time has admitted - but that's a matter for a tribunal.

I am very tired of one set of women here claiming that another set of women should have known - that those who didn’t see a leaflet or a TV advert or something on the side of a bus were somehow stupid or sleepwalking. It’s offensive and needs to stop.

What is important is the PHSO’s extensive research and findings, that the DWP commissioned surveys but then ignored the result;, knew they had to tell women their individual SPA; took years to do so, told some and not others using some arbitrary cut off point.

As Maggiemaybe very rightly said on page three of this discussion, it is a dangerous path to allow a government to ignore an Ombudsman's investigation - else what are they for?

Not been well today.. Wanted to do this sooner.I.think there have some extremely patronising comments made by someposters.We are not thick and stupid

Yes there has been a lot of publicity about Waspi in recent years. But not when the Pension Act date was originally changed in the 1990's

Yes it was about equalizing the Pension Age with men to 65.

I like hundreds of thousands of other women were never written to by the DWP when the law was changed in the 90's to inform me of the change.

Get out excuses

1. The Conservatives Government never published this news on Pension Change in the National Press at that time .When questioned they could not even come up with one instance of a copy of a copy of a National Press Advertisement when asked.

THIS IS THE MAIN REASON WHY A CASE WAS BROUGHT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT FOR POTENTIAL
MALADMINISTRATION

2. As far as l.know at the time of change in the law under the Conservatives. The old pension act where women would retire at 60 included Women born from April 6 1950 until April 6 1955.

Other Women born after this were not included.

But they have just jumped on the bandwagon and made things worse for the original qualifying date women

3. The Labour Government sat on this decision and deliberately kept quiet about it for years. Usual lack of integrity

4. The first thing l knew about it was from a friend six years older than me who retired and had problems getting a State Pension as she could not find her divorce papers.

She said
If she had been a few months younger she would have missed the 60 retirement date.

News to me.

I was born in the tranche of women who originally qualified for an age 60 State Pension as my birthday is in early 1955.

4. I did write to several MPs about the agreement changed including the newly elected young Marie Black who was useless.

My local MP is a real Labour Yes Man. And turned around and more or less said "Tough"

Was also helped by the late great Frank Field MP who really tried to support my tranche of women.

5..Yes l was aware of the sliding scale of added years to qualify.

The incoming Conservatives did actually write to me to say..That l would have 4 years and 9 months put on my pension age. Then it changed another 15 months. 6 years in all

6. Last Point.A lot of women at the time of change in the nineties worked part time for small business..Left to have children. Had health problems.Went to retrain or study. Did not belong to a Union to inform them about matters

And did not go have nice, private workplace pensions to retire on from cushy jobs when mortgages had been paid.

PaynesGrey Thank you for your comprehensive, excellent post.
There came I time when caring responsibilities meant I could only work sporadically, no full employment. My contribution record was shot to pieces. When I found out about the possibility of paying voluntary contributions I struggled but paid for the previous 6 years and then paid yearly to try and achieve the 39 years required. At no time was I ever informed of my retirement date and the attendant implications. I did finally receive a communication from DWP suggesting that I might not need to make any further voluntary contributions because of a pending change to pension qualification. I stopped the struggle to afford the voluntary contributions and am grateful for the state pension I now receive, even if it isn't as large as some receive. I wouldn't say no to a little compensation, but nor will I go on marches demanding it, and I realise many women missed out a great deal more than me.
What I am emphatic about is that we're not the idiotic bimbos some would paint us.

Allira

^Things may have varied all round as to what one got told by employer and/or union.^

Yes, I agree CariadAgain
Even employers like Local Government, the Civil Service and the NHS weren't above being economical with the truth or treating women like second-class citizens as far as pensions were concerned years ago.
Money paid into the Civil Service or Local Government Pension Schemes was "generously" repaid as a gratuity upon marriage or as a 'baby bonus'.

Yep...you're right on that one. I knew of a noticeable number of women who honestly thought that money they were given was a "gift" for things like getting married - rather than early repayment of monies they were due for anyway. Looking back through the eyes of this century = it's incredible that anyone would think they might be due a "wedding gift" from their employer - but I suppose they were aware that a lot of equivalent men to them were earning more money (albeit from a different employer) and regarded it as their due as a bit of payback for that sort of thing.

Whether there was some little thing going on in their heads connecting back to the way even earlier era public sector female employees got unfairly dismissed on getting married and it all got conflated by them at some level into "But WE get a present for getting married" I don't know. It's been quite a mix-up of ways women in the public sector got treated over the years - cue my own mother was unfairly dismissed for getting married back in her era (the 1950s) and she had to find a replacement job in the private sector to take her through until 3 weeks before her first child was born (ie me).

I remember getting offered the chance to get repaid my job pension money as a lump sum from the public sector employer I had for 4 years in my early 20's (the early 1970s) and just thought of it as a sort of "bonus" in effect and took it. Probably not a wise decision on my part in hindsight. Though I wonder what on earth would have happened to it in other respects - given that public sector employer was privatised in latter years.

I wonder whether sexism came into it too that a quasi-public sector employer I had in the 1980s for 18 months said to me that I could go into their pension scheme as soon as I joined or wait until I'd been there a year and then it was compulsory to join it. Fortunately I decided to wait that year - as I got unfairly dismissed at 18 months - and at least it was only 6 months worth of my job pension money that they denied I had and they stole it (when I asked for it to be transferred over to my next job they denied it existed!!). So the "redundancy money" I thought they paid me was actually my own money anyway.

There was certainly all sorts of "playing ducks and drakes" going on with womens pensions then for sure. I expect a lot of us could tell a tale of having been treated in that sort of way.

JenniferEccles

Linked to this I can also remember, back in the 70s when I was newly married, being advised by a couple of older women in the office to make sure I paid for the full National Insurance stamp and not the reduced married women’s one, as the latter would impact negatively on my state pension in the future.
I think the idea at the time was that women would be able to claim on their husband’s contribution for their own state pension.

I took notice of the advice and was glad I did.

You were very wise to listen to them.

It may not have been just married women who had the lower stamp paid on them at that. I've always been single and there was a point back then where I worked for a few months on what should have been THE most ethical employer in the country and friends of mine there spotted that they'd somehow wrongly paid the married womans rate on single me and there was a blazing row about it and I landed up giving in my notice in disillusionment. I don't know whether it was because a noticeable part of my "salary" was board and lodging at the employers missionary college. Yep....Christian missionary - hence they should have been THE most ethical employer ever.....and my disillusionment.

Withnobs Sorry you have not been well. As you illustrate life has twists and turns. It it not merely the case that you receive a letter or read you Daily Telegraph.

Life was different back then. Women perhaps more involved with the home and trying to work alongside those committments.
Ill health, very elderly parents, problems with children. Not everybody has a nice easy path with pensions and property.
Some smug people can't get their heads around that.

Yep...you're right on that one. I knew of a noticeable number of women who honestly thought that money they were given was a "gift" for things like getting married - rather than early repayment of monies they were due for anyway.

Well, I knew full well it wasn't a gift and was repayment of money I'd paid in as superannuation but that was the norm then, especially if you were having a break from work to have a family and money was tight.

One of my mother's favourite sayings was "If I knew then what I know now".
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Ill health, very elderly parents, children

Sometimes it wasn't easy to keep all the juggling balls in the air and one or two got dropped, usually our own welfare, pensions etc. And yes, enforced retirement due to ill health may have been another factor.

The government - of any party - will drag this out until most of us are dead.

Fact.

It certainly doesn’t bode well for any recompense.
Look how long the poor sub-postmasters have waited.

It is indeed a government tactic to drag things out deliberately. There ought to be some law or other that says "If it's been dragged out so long that the person is dead - then the money is to go to their estate" and at least it would then go to whoever they have left their property to in their will. That might possibly gee them up a bit to stop using that tactic - as they'd know they'd have to pay up anyway at some point, ie however long they dragged it out for.

It is absolutely engrained in them to do "drag it out" tactics in all sorts of respects - as people get tired/get busy/etc and that's what they are bargaining on (ie that people won't determinedly keep tabs on them until it's all "done and dusted"). There ought to be some sort of reasonable timescale set right at the beginning of issues and that would give the Government a disencentive to deliberately dragging things out if they knew they'd get whacked with a financial penalty for doing so (along the lines of "If you owe X person £50,000 for instance if they win - then finish the episode up before they get to the end of Year Y or we'll tell you to up that compensation by 20% for each subsequent year you drag it out for").

Certainly my sympathies indeed are with the sub-postmasters for what happened to them - a heavy financial burden indeed and their names blackened too. I remember when it was considered to be quite a "nice little number" to take on a small post office before that incident occurred - as no-one would have anticipated that little game would get played on them. There was a couple I encountered about to do that and thinking that would be a good little idea for them and I have wondered if they got caught up in all that.

So yep....deliberate delay is very much a government tactic and things getting "lost" and deliberate "inefficiency".

StripeyGran

Withnobs Sorry you have not been well. As you illustrate life has twists and turns. It it not merely the case that you receive a letter or read you Daily Telegraph.

Life was different back then. Women perhaps more involved with the home and trying to work alongside those committments.
Ill health, very elderly parents, problems with children. Not everybody has a nice easy path with pensions and property.
Some smug people can't get their heads around that.

I agree. I like to think I’m pretty up to date with the world but the pensions thing passed me by. I wasn’t in a union, didn’t do that kind of job, plus four children, including a very sick child, aging parents and then being posted abroad for my dh’s work, I guess I did drop that ball.

What is telling to me is that it also passed by my Dh. He was always super-organised with pensions etc so I cannot believe he would have let this matter go if it had come to his attention.

Aveline

I was born in 1954 and heard absolutely nothing about the increase in pension age.

I was born in 1954 Aveline.
I don't care what anyone says, I didn't have a letter either.
I always keep important letters.

sharon103

Aveline

I was born in 1954 and heard absolutely nothing about the increase in pension age.

I was born in 1954 Aveline.
I don't care what anyone says, I didn't have a letter either.
I always keep important letters.

Yep....you and me both.

Hence why I realised the importance instantly of the article in the "Daily Mail" (states - again - that it wasnt one of the quality newspapers it was in.....it was that mid-market one) - ie the one stating what the government were going to do and putting in the table. It was a very clear table - as the first tranche of the government doing this to us was a month at a time and I could instantly look up my birth month and birth year....look straight across and think "That's the amount of time they're going to steal my State Pension off me for". Could not have been clearer - as one just looked down to the left-hand dates section under the year one was born and, in my case, thought "Right - there's January 1953, February 1953, March 1953 etc for the year. Look straight across to the right-hand column and it tells me exactly how many months worth they are going to steal from me personally".

It got more complicated - when they came back for another "bite of the cherry" subsequently and that time another month younger meant several more months State Pension stolen. But, fortunately in my case, they didnt decide to steal any more off those of us in that first tranche.

But it was crystal clear at one quick glance on that table for those of us in the first tranche. Having kept that table - I would certainly have kept any letter I received too - ie just in case that table had been wrong and I'd needed to prove I'd been "bashed too hard" or otherwise.

Reading a mid-market newspaper doesn't take that long. The quality ones of the Telegraph/The Times/The Guardian yep.....but count out stuff one isn't interested in (ie sport, celebrity stars, royal family) and looking for just the real news and basic financial information doesn't take long at all and maybe a quick side glance at the horoscope chucked in.

Hence why I realised the importance instantly of the article in the "Daily Mail"

My word, you're brave CariadAgain 😂

Just in the habit of looking for articles beneficial to me financially.

Counting up that I recall:
- Opening accounts with £100 each in in a variety of building societies and then waiting the several years it took for them to pay people hundreds of £s just for having an account (I did put that as a business proposition to my parents that they lend me these 10?/12? sums of money and I'd split the profit with them when it came through in 2?/3? years time and my mother refused. So I had to deduct overdraft costs for the overdraft I'd had to take out to do that investment - as I didnt actually have the money).

- Found out about how to get "right to buy" money from my housing association to buy a place of my choice on the open market (the only time in my life I've been able to "have my cake and eat it"). Went off to my incredulous housing association that told me all the money had been spent and told them "You'll be given some more in a few months time. Please put my application through and it will be ready for when you do". They were still looking at me incredulously as I walked out the door - thinking "I have absolutely no way of proving I'm right on that - but I am...I 'know' it".
- Didn't take money out of an employers pension scheme when they offered the chance and was so glad I left it there.

That's just the first few benefits of reading the very basic financial pages they have - ie back when they were pretty good on that.

There's no way I could have afforded to be single for long on my poor income if I hadnt read those sort of things and then acted on my intuition. If I'd been worse with money I'd have had to "settle" and marry "someone/anyone" rather than waiting and hoping (fruitlessly as it turned out to be) for Mr Right (who never darn well did appear....).

Never happen!

Mojack - what won't happen?

seventhfloorregular

I can remember various letters being sent about pension changes but like most young women with young families. I think pension ages now should be the same but there are a generation of women who were forced to stop working when they had children.
However I might have amnesia if asked I got a letter

Yes. All true. Some women had to leave their work if they were pregnant or not employed at all if the employers thought they might get pregnant. Women were also paid much less than men and of course it was women who had to take time off to have their children, or work evenings and weekends in low paid roles because of childcare. Things were not equal for women in the past and many had gaps in their NI payments meaning that many do not get full SP. there are multiple reasons why women who were out of the workforce did not get all the information they needed about changes to SP ages. I got a letter to say it was moving from 60 to 62 years but after that, nothing. How foolish of women like me to believe that we could trust the government to ensure we would be kept updated.

2507C0

seventhfloorregular

I can remember various letters being sent about pension changes but like most young women with young families. I think pension ages now should be the same but there are a generation of women who were forced to stop working when they had children.
However I might have amnesia if asked I got a letter

Yes. All true. Some women had to leave their work if they were pregnant or not employed at all if the employers thought they might get pregnant. Women were also paid much less than men and of course it was women who had to take time off to have their children, or work evenings and weekends in low paid roles because of childcare. Things were not equal for women in the past and many had gaps in their NI payments meaning that many do not get full SP. there are multiple reasons why women who were out of the workforce did not get all the information they needed about changes to SP ages. I got a letter to say it was moving from 60 to 62 years but after that, nothing. How foolish of women like me to believe that we could trust the government to ensure we would be kept updated.

Yes I remember being asked if I had the intension of starting a family. I worked in IT, I was intensely mobile in that job and never stayed longer than 18 months anywhere. I rejected their sexist crap and moved on, but even then it made my life difficult. I ended up pregnant with twins as a contractor and couldn't even get a 3 month contact when I was 4 months gone. I hated being stuck at home when I didn't know anyone where I lived, as I had always been working previously.

Intention!!

FriedGreenTomatoes2

^Had I received my pension at 60, I would have received around £40,000 of pension between age 60 and 66 which, as a widow, would have been very helpful. I will break even on the loss around age 83, if I live that long^

Exactly PaynesGrey
The enhanced pension will take about 14 years to ‘break even’ on what we’ve missed out on.

Many of us won’t see 83.
Saving the government of the day money.

A small amount (token) would go a long way in the acknowledgment that ‘goalposts were not only changed but then brought forward too’.

My old style pension is higher than the new one due to S2P, many others will be the same. Won't be possible going forward. Are people who contracted out and enhanced their private pension going to share with us?