Compensation hopes for nearly 50,000 women
50,000 WASPI women in Coventry and Warwickshire are still waiting to find out if they will ever get compensation - and our map shows how many are affected where you live.
The Government has so far failed to say if any compensation will be paid to millions of women born in the 1950s who were not properly informed about the rise in the state pension age.
The Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) campaign group has called this an “injustice” that meant many were forced to delay retirement plans without any warning.
An ombudsman has recommended that affected women born in the 1950s receive an apology and compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950. But Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, repeatedly refused to say if a decision would be made before the general election.
Pressed by Ed Balls on Good Morning Britain on what happens next, Mr Stride said there were “strong feelings” for and against awarding compensation.
He said: “There’ll be no undue delay in us coming forward, but I do want to have sufficient time. There are very strong feelings about this on all sides of the argument as to whether compensation should be paid or not.”
And Mr Stride told the Today programme: “I’m not going to put a precise time limit on it, but we do need to look at these things very carefully. I think I owe it to everybody to really make sure that the guiding light in this process is that it is thorough, and that it is conclusive because it has gone on for an awfully long time.”
But while the wait for compensation drags on, campaigners say a WASPI woman dies every 13 minutes. Research from the
House of Commons Library estimates that 14,660 women in Coventry and 32,820 in the rest of Warwickshire - a total of 47,480 WASPI women - were affected by the scandal, which left them without enough time to adjust their savings plans.
If the ombudsman’s recommendations are accepted, total compensation payouts of between £47.5 and £140.1 million would be made to those women. The overall bill to the taxpayer to compensate 3.6m WASPI women across the UK would be between £3.6 and £10.8 billion.
In our area, Stratford-onAvon has the highest number of WASPI women residents, with an estimated 6,500 living in that constituency, who could ultimately receive a share of between £6.5m and £19.2m in compensation.
More than 500,000 WASPI women live in the South East of England, more than in any other part of the UK. Women in the region could receive up to £1.5bn in compensation.
The next highest is the North West, with just under 410,000 WASPI women, who could each receive a share of up to £1.2bn. There are also 335,000 WASPI women in Scotland, 200,000 in Wales, and 100,000 in Northern Ireland.
Of parliamentary constituencies, there are more WASPI women in the Isle of Wight than anywhere else (10,950), who could share a payout of up to £32.3m, followed by Louth and Horncastle in the East Midlands (8,640) and then
Torridge and West Devon (8,440).
Campaigners, however, have demanded compensation payouts far above the ombudsman’s recommendations of £10,000 or more. That would amount to a bill to the taxpayers of £36.8bn.
WASPI chair Angela Madden, pictured, said: “Everyone knows someone who is a WASPI woman and every MP will have heard from grassroots members of our campaign. For nine long years, the government has hoped we would just go away, but they have underestimated the strength of feeling and the strength in numbers that we have. Finally paying compensation will go some way to right the injustice and is also likely to boost local economies, as women previously in penury enjoy some long-awaited spending power and comfort.
“But that can only happen if the compensation is adequate - reflecting the true injustice we’ve suffered.”