I wanted to end the year by sharing my view of the Government’s decision not to compensate the Waspi women. I know that many, many constituents have been disappointed by this decision, as I was myself. Over the years I have campaigned for justice for the Waspi women. In the 2019 General Election I stood on a platform that included a commitment to compensation for the Waspi women. The Labour party lost that election. In the 2024 we campaigned on the issue of providing justice for Waspi women, and Labour won the General Election. I understand that many Waspi women may not feel that there is justice. I want to set out my views in the interests of transparency and accountability.
I have never opposed the equalisation of women’s pension age in theory or in practice. I remember when I started my professional working life, at the age of 22, being surprised to learn that the male graduate entrants in our cohort would not be making pension contributions but the women would – this was because women retired earlier. I found that difficult to understand given that women lived longer. I think it was right to equalise the pension age, and I understood successive Governments had communicated their plans in this regard, albeit with different levels of success.
As the Member of Parliament for Newcastle Central and more recently Central and West, my primary concern has always been the impact of pension equalisation policy on disadvantaged and working class women, particularly those who, unlike me, started work at the age of 15 and had therefore spent decades in what was often physically strenuous work, in compared to my decades in various predominately desk and lab jobs. I remember in particular a constituent seamstress who cried as she explained that she could no long get down on her knees to hem skirts and could not be expected to do so well into her sixties. I called a debate in the House of Commons to highlight the impact on working class women. I recognise the same was true for many working class men who began work age 15 in strenuous jobs but I felt the difference in expectation was important. Waspi women had made plans on the basis of a given retirement age. I also felt these working class women were less likely to be well informed of the changes although I could not find evidence of that.
In that context the Labour Government’s announcement of no compensation for any Waspi women is disappointing. I would like to have seen those women who were the most affected in terms of their level of pension and the difficulty in carrying on working, compensated to some extent. But I recognise the dire financial situation the Labour Government has inherited from the Tories and that the Tories made no provision for compensation for Waspi women, or for compensation for the Horizon scandal, the Infected Blood scandal or the Miners Pension scandal. The Government has, I believe, sought to deliver justice where it can, in context of a difficult economic situation and the imperative of fixing public services whilst investing in the growth we all need if we are to build the high skill, high wage, high productivity economy we all want.
I believe justice for Waspi women is an issue that could be revisited when the fiscal environment has improved, with a focus on disadvantaged and working class women whose lifetime of labour was undervalued in multiple ways by our society.
Being in Government is about making difficult choices in the best interests of the many. I believe that is what the Government has sought to do in a very difficult economic environment. If constituents would like to meet me to discuss the impact of the decision on them, I am very happy to do so.