Ignoring the plight of older women ‘could cost Starmer’

Ignoring the estimated 3.6 million women affected by major changes to the state pension age could spell electoral danger for Labour, the party has been warned.

Pollsters and campaigners told i that the generation of so-called Waspi women who did not get their pension at 60 as they expected could have “outsized influence” on the general election.

The Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign group is increasingly angry that Sir Keir Starmer’s party has shied away from committing – in the event of it winning the election – to paying any compensation in the wake of a damning official report into the saga.

The shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, said yesterday that the Government should be given some “time and space” to respond to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendation that compensation payments of £2,950 should be made.

But Angela Madden, the chair of Waspi, claimed that one affected woman was dying every 13 minutes, adding: “One thing Waspi women don’t have is time.”

She said that the women were desperate “to hear what a Labour government would do”.

Neither of the two main parties has been willing to commit to a compensation scheme, despite previous backing from Sir Keir and 11 of his front-bench team.

Pollsters warned Labour that failing to offer such a scheme could lead to frustration among older female voters who have more commonly voted for the Conservatives.

Luke Tryl, the UK director of the More in Common initiative, said: “If you look at the key voter block of 2019 Conservative voters who are undecided – it is disproportionately older women. It is 60 to 70 per cent female, with an average age in the sixties.

“So Waspi women are a key part of the voter bloc that has this outsized influence on the election. The scale of how big Labour’s victory might be – from a hung parliament to large majority – depends to some degree on these undecided voters.”

Mr Tryl said the issue kept coming up during focus group meetings with older female voters.

He added: “They say the rules were changed and they were screwed over – though the anger at the moment isn’t directed at one party. It puts pressure on Labour on the Waspi issue. I’m not saying it’s good policy, but it would be good politics to have something [on compensation].” Another polling expert, Professor Sir John Curtice, said: “It could become an [election] issue, if the Tories say no to compensation and Labour says yes,” he said. “But one suspects that Labour is not desperately keen to spend an awful lot of money on this either.”