A ‘WASPI woman’ dies every 13 minutes waiting for justice
MANY died in poverty, others with their retirement plans and end-oflife dreams in tatters. All died without compensation for the pain and poverty they’ve suffered.
As 2024 begins, campaign group The Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign reports that more than 260,000 women affected by state pension age changes have died since their fight for justice began.
These women are among four million who saw their lives change overnight when the Department for Work and Pensions increased the state pension age from 60 to 65, then 66 without informing those affected.
With no time to plan – three in five were already retiring or had cut their hours when the announcement was made – millions were left without enough to live on.
Now, as victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal finally get the political attention they deserve, the WASPI women are asking which political party will have the courage to tackle their systemic injustice.
Angela Madden, chair of the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign, said: “The tragic stories of so many sub-postmasters will no doubt resonate with thousands of WASPI women who have likewise seen successive governments dismiss them instead of listening.
INJUSTICE
“DWP’s incompetence and neglect meant nearly four million women had their lives turned upside down after their state pension was postponed without notice. Many were forced to sell their homes, exhaust their savings and work through illness and disability.
“This week, Parliament has shown it can intervene in such injustices and provide a remedy. All that is required is political will. It is time for the parties at Westminster to get their heads together and agree fast, fair compensation for all of us who were affected by DWP’s incompetence.
“With one woman dying every 13 minutes, there is no time to lose.”
There are 3.74 million WASPI women who could still have the retirement many of them worked all their lives for.
But it’s too late now for Ivy Hamilton. In the weeks before she died from a heart attack aged 63, she was still working double shifts at the pub she had run for almost 45 years in Elgin, Moray, locking it up each night at 1.30am.
“It’s no good asking people to just work longer – it isn’t always possible,” says her sister Linda Macpherson, 68. “You don’t always have the strength. Our bodies can’t take it. My sister had an op on her shoulder. The injury was caused by work, reaching up for the optics.” Supermarket worker Linda has only recently received her own pension. “I was doing 12 hours a week by the end, but I have osteo-arthritis and it was no good for my hands, my knees,” she says. “My sister and I had both worked since being 15. We paid in, our money was there – but the Government broke their contract. How many more people will die without getting what’s fair?”
Former teaching assistant Annette Sultana also died waiting for her delayed pension. She passed away while being treated for cancer, following a fall at her home in Darwen, Lancs, aged 63 – three years before she could claim.
Her friend, Kath Hodkinson, 67, says financial worries blighted her final years. “I don’t know how she managed, she didn’t have an income,” she says. “The stress of that is awful – you wonder if that affected her health, if that made her ill.
“We were 57 when we were told we weren’t getting our pension at 60. I had a husband, I was lucky, but it meant he had to work nights to keep us both. We had years of hardship, living hand to mouth.
“We couldn’t even get a free bus pass.
“Annette and I worked from 16. We were told, ‘pay your National Insurance and we’ll pay your pension at 60’. What happened to that promise? What happened to the money Annette paid?
“The Government is just waiting for us all to die.” A mean spoons player, Jen Bancroft loved her family, folk music and cooking. When she retired, after a lifetime working in retail, she was looking forward to more time with husband, Phil, 68. The couple had worked hard since their teens – Phil, for Network Rail, and Jen, in the travel industry. Jen had finished work shortly before reaching 60 to support family members through a bereavement – so the rule change meant Phil had to stay on at work.
Tragically, Jen passed away suddenly aged 69 in June 2023. “We just didn’t get the time,” says Phil, who lives in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. “I had to suck it up and carry on working. The years of pension Jen missed add up to £40,000. After a lifetime of paying in, she deserved better. All the WASPI women do.”
When support worker Gerry Miller was denied her pension, she joined the fight to have it restored – meeting hundreds of other WASPI women.
The 68-year-old, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, passed away just a few months after finally receiving the payments she’d waited eight years for.
ANGER
As her daughter, Nicola Bacon, 49, explains: “She couldn’t stand the injustice of it. She heard awful stories, women facing desperate times, financial ruin. At one point, a Tory minister suggested that she and the other women could consider doing an apprenticeship – that was so insulting. It showed how little they cared.”
New WASPI campaign research has found 70% of members have been forced to cut back on food this winter, while more than half (55%) say their financial situation got worse in 2023.
As the election looms, 75% of WASPI women say they don’t feel Prime Minister Rishi Sunak understands their situation, while 65% don’t know which party will help them best.
As the women fight for their compensation, the delayed Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s stage two report is finally set to be published this spring.
“The Ombudsman’s investigation has been going on for five long years,” Angela Madden says. “To keep women waiting a single further day for an offer of compensation just shows an appalling disregard for all of us.”
It is time for politicians to act in the names of Ivy, Annette, Jen, Gerry and all the 260,000 women already lost.
Their families, and 3.7 million women, shouldn’t have to wait for an ITV drama to get justice, or to die trying. waspi.co.uk
Nearly four million women had state pension postponed
‘‘
They shouldn’t have to wait for an ITV drama to be heard, or to die trying