Take wealth off super-rich for the pensions we deserve
Jane Nellist, Coventry Socialist Party
Pat McFadden, Labour Work and Pensions Minister, reaffirmed on 29 January the government’s decision to deny financial compensation to the 3.6 million women affected by changes to the state pension age.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman had previously found maladministration over the handling of communications to these women and ruled in 2024 that they should be compensated financially.
This would have meant a payment of between £1,000 and £2,950, despite the fact that many women had actually lost many thousands of pounds.
This group of women, known as the WASPI women (Women Against State Pension Inequality), has campaigned for years, arguing that they were not given adequate notice when their retirement age was raised from 60 to 65 (and later 66).
As one of the women that falls into this group, like millions of others, I never received any official letter about these changes. For many women, it has left them in a dire financial crisis at a time when they should be looking forward to retirement.
Pat McFadden callously argued that it would cost between £3.5 billion and £10.3 billion, and said it would be an “unjustifiable use of taxpayer money”.
How disgraceful when, at the same time, the government has recently committed to increase defence expenditure to around 2.5 % of GDP by 2027, with ambitions to go higher in the next parliament, up to £74 billion total in the coming years.
So plenty of money for warfare but not for the many women who have been left in poverty due to these brutal decisions.
For the 1950s-born women who are denied dignity in old age, this is a real betrayal. Especially as many on the Labour front bench voiced strong support for WASPI women whilst in opposition.
What is certain is that WASPI women are not going to accept this quietly. This campaign is by no means over.
We are a rich country; there is plenty of money to provide decent pensions and benefits as well as well-funded public services, which we all rely on. But that wealth is in the hands of big business and the super-rich. What is lacking is a political force to ensure that wealth is used to provide living pensions, decent public services and the jobs and homes that we need. We need a party that will stand with the majority of us against the super-rich bosses – a mass party of the working class with a socialist programme.
