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Starmer slammed the Conservative government for failing to green-light compensation for 1950s-born women caught out by moves to hike the state pension age for women from 60 to 65. As PM, he suddenly sees things differently.
In March 2022, I broke the news that Starmer had come out firmly in favour of Waspi demands for compensation.
He cheerfully posed with Scottish Waspi campaigners holding up a pledge card stating: “I support fair and fast compensation for 1950s women.”
Waspi women saw this as a huge boost in their battle for redress. Especially when it became clear that Labour was heading for power.
That wasn’t the only support Starmer granted them.
On March 21 this year, the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman’s final report concluded that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to provide proper information to 1950s women who suffered injustice as a result and were due compensation.
Starmer’s response?
On April 30 he said of Waspi women: “They’ve been put in an awful position, a position they shouldn’t be put in. It’s a huge injustice.”
He doubled down on May 31 by blasting Tory foot dragging. “The Ombudsman’s report came out I don’t know how many months ago now and the Government should have responded and they haven’t done so … it is shocking that the Government hasn’t dealt with it.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves chipped in on June 4 simply saying: “I recognise that injustice.”
Labour support goes right back to 2021, when deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted: “Solidarity with the WASPI women today and always. We need justice for the mistreatment they have suffered at the hands of the government.”
Well, Labour is the government now. And its views appear to have radically changed. “Today and always” appears to mean something else altogether.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Before the election I wrote: Waspi women warning: the closer Starmer gets to power, the less he wants to know you.
So far, Starmer and Reeves haven’t put forward any proposals to remedy the injustice they were decrying when chasing Waspi votes.
Labour now faces a £47billion bill to compensate victims of the infected blood and Post Office Horizon scandals. There’s no mention of Waspi women in that.
The Government’s only response to the Ombudsman’s report has come from Emma Reynolds, Under-Secretary of State for Pensions.
On July 22 she said that as a newly formed Government “we will need time to review and consider the Ombudsman’s report”.
This was followed by blether about needing to consider everyone’s views, significant complex issues, serious deliberation, blah blah blah.
Hilary Simpson, chair of the Women Against State Pension Injustice (WASPI) Campaign, isn’t impressed, telling me: “Unfortunately, to weary campaigners this sounds like a euphemism for further delaying.”
Which is exactly what Starmer accused the Tories of doing.
As the delays drag on, more Waspi women are dying without compensation. Another 4,000 passed during the summer recess alone.
Yet Starmer says and does nothing.
Simpson said: “Labour cannot accuse the previous government of dithering on the issue, then proceed to dither in the same manner themselves.”
She called on Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to do the right thing. “In 99% of cases, the Ombudsman’s recommendations are accepted by the public bodies they investigate. We are not prepared to be the 1%.”
The public is on the side of Waspi women, with seven in 10 backing compensation, according to a survey of more than 2,000 adults by the Women Against State Pension Inequality group.
Yet only one in four trusts Starmer to deliver it. Simpson said: “Now is his chance to prove them wrong!”
With more than 5,500 Waspi women in the typical UK constituency she said backbench Labour MPs must step up to “right this wrong”.
Waspi is fighting on and DWP Under-Secretary of State Emma Reynolds has agreed to meet its representatives in early September.
Simpson said Starmer’s credibility is on the line. “Millions of women will lose faith in Labour if their words of support in opposition are not translated into deeds now that they’re in power.”
They won’t be the first group of voters to feel that way.