Tom Haynes Personal Account

Forget about the whining Waspi women, my put-upon generation are the real victims of Britain’s appalling state pensions betrayal

You really have to hand it to the Waspis: in the dying embers of this beleaguered Government everyone has been clamouring for a crumb of help, but it seems the Women Against State Pension Inequality might be the only ones to get it. Mick Lynch must be fuming.

Last week the Parliamentary Ombudsman said that the Government was guilty of maladministration because it delayed informing some women that their state pension age would rise from 60 to 65. As a result, affected women may be in for a windfall of between £1,000 and £3,000 in compensation. Oh, great. More freebies for this generation of pensioners.

I recently turned 28, and to put it mildly, I am not thrilled about this – not least because one case put before the Ombudsman was Ms U, who said she would not have made the “irreversible decision” to retire in 2006 at 47, three years before the Department for Work and Pensions would have contacted her anyway.

I’m not the only one who has found the Waspis’ success a bit of a headscratcher, but it looks as though these women will get their money, while young people get nothing. I am waiting patiently for a campaign of Yaspis (youth against state pension inequality) to catch on, but I suspect it won’t.

And look, I get it. Twentysomethings like me are a difficult bunch to lure to the polls – especially to vote Conservative. If I were the chancellor, and all I cared about was my party clinging to power, I’d probably earmark a few more million quid to send personalised apology cards to the Waspis with their £3,000.

There is simply no point in the Tories going out of their way to help the young because aside from being a lost cause, the damage has already been done. This week alone, Michael Gove’s attempts to impose restrictions on leasehold ground rents were reportedly scrapped, not least because pensioners are big investors in freeholds.

While this is all going on, Gove’s Renters Reform Bill, which could ease the burden on young people struggling in Britain’s wild-west rental market, has been repeatedly kicked into the long grass. Why? Because that would negatively impact a generation of pensioners who are also landlords. And we can’t have that, can we? ( The suggestion that landlords should pay to up their properties’ energy efficiency and shield tenants from sky- high bills was also deemed too high a bar for the former to reach if you’re keeping score.)

At every turn, the budget seems to shift to accommodate the Conservatives’ older voter base, while my generation is squeezed to fill in the gaps. I haven’t even got to the triple-trunked elephant in the room – the Waspis seem loathe to mention that the state pension triple-lock pension netted them an inflation-busting £ 900 pay rise last year.

I, for one, don’t expect to see the triple lock in my lifetime, because I actually read the news, and I am aware that as life expectancy continues to rise, a state benefit this generous will not be a viable thing to force working people to pay for in 40 years.

The Waspis seem blissfully unaware that the true state pension inequality is between their generation and mine. They don’t deserve a penny.