See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive. "A compensation award of the level sought by Waspi would cost billions," she said, adding it would have to be funded by additional government borrowing, higher taxes or diverting money away. Some have died without getting any State Pension at all. Our fundraising has been going incredibly well over the weekend: we are now over 60% of the way to our target of the fighting fund needed to get our case into court and moving forward with WASPI adequately protected. The Coalition Government legislated in the Pensions Act 2011 to accelerate the latter part of this timetable, starting in April 2016 when women's SPA was 63 so that it reached 65 in November 2018, at which point it started to rise to 66 by October 2020. Sadly some will be taken in by tea and cake. Some women were given only one year's notice of a six-year delay to their retirement. My manifesto is Attlees in the modern age, which includes the biggest betterment of National Insurance and state pension in its history between 1945 and 1951. Your card will only be charged if the case meets its target of 100,000 by Mar. Please contribute and share this page now! Perhaps its time that those who support Angela Madden & co should take note of why they are selling 50sWomen short? Around 200,000 women could be owed an average of 13,500 after their state pensions were underpaid, new figures reveal. Then Trudy could PM me please. For decades,. Grey Swans campaign is not to any currently elected political type, but is seeking moral support, please, for creation of our new Over 50s (saves all ages) party, that alone offers: Pension age 60 Q3: But the Ombudsman found maladministration at Stage 1 of his investigation didnt he? We are really grateful for your support. colonel frank o'sullivan interview; beverly hills high school football Pension 60 men and women (1960s born now turning 60) We decided to take that step now, given we are so close to our initial fundraising target and are confident you will help us reach it. Some 3.8million hit by pension age rises will get up to 31,300. Whether Waspi will go down the judicial review route remains to be seen. Lets hear a response from Angela Madden, Chair #WaSpi herself. The PHSO has not said people do not need to be compensated for financial loss only worry and confusion in his Stage 2 provisional report. The meeting offered a great selection of Canaps-including dairy free ones for not a very big audience of 50 people- but I doubt anyone left any wiser on what would happen next. Also more pensioners are remaining in work beyond retirement age, which means boss NI contributions continue. Before the changes I had earned additional pension of 21.20 per week. These payments will now be made automatically following a Government review - although some women, depending on their circumstances, will still need to claim. This report. Legal action of this kind is not cheap - we need to protect ourselves against the risk of having to pay the Ombudsman's costs as well as paying our own lawyers. The grey suits now hate the Tories and are talking up Labour (latter greatest enemy to pensioners since 1978 with the same enemies in the party, against Attlee and Wilson). Labour are as bad as the rest ,none worth voting for .I am 73 and experienced them all Waspi will get nothing from any of them.Nothing came through our door regarding pension change I also always tuned into BBC radio news in my truck from1979 until I finished in2022, they have stolen and cheated the waspi women and all those before them.NEXT ELECTION our family will vote NONE with a line through and please do not say it is a waste. It rules that this was maladministration because 1950s women were not given adequate notice of major changes to their State Pension, READ MORE:Waspi woman's desperate step after State Pension snub. This cross-party support makes it more likely that Parliament will approve any compensation package, with Davey saying he would back whatever is agreed. In the currently unpublished Stage 2 Report, the Ombudsman examines whether this maladministration led to injustice and, if it did, what that injustice was. The Ombudsman may recommend compensation for worry and anxiety (normally very small amounts), loss of opportunity (typically more) and direct financial losses (money lost because different choices could and would have been made with a better financial outcome for the individual had there been no maladministration). Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. . Thank you for everything you do; please know that we truly do value your honest, no-nonsense approach which lays bare/opens to scrutiny events/incidents impacting our daily lives no matter (how distasteful some may find it). The Ombudsman has, however, provided insight into how the complaints will be investigated. Money is not everything they say, but it is when you havent got any. Sadly some folk never fail to disappoint regardless of given facts! Check out the website PHSO the true story. MORE than 15,000 Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen West 1950s women campaigners who have been hit by changes to state pension have been boosted by a cross-party parliamentary group's compensation call. Please leave yourcomments here about the content on this page. 22 per cent pay rise for nurses and Junior Doctors, This is a plea on behalf of the millions of us woman, to sort this out and do the right thing, and not wait for the millions of letters you wil receive regarding the deaths of the women concerned. According to Waspi, the ONS data reveals that men aged between 65 and 74 have 182,700 in private pension savings while women of the same age have just 25,000 saved up. Now we must seek it from the High Court. * Pension Calculator link* Sky News reported on a huge WASPI reception for Corbyn in Derbyshire , with the WASPI women cheering, "Ooooh Jeremy Corbyn". But everyone makes mistakes and we believe he has made several here based on our experience (which includes successful judicial review cases involving the Ombudsman). If we win, the Ombudsman will have to reconsider his second report and re-write it, properly identify the injustices that the DWP's maladministration has caused and make recommendations for compensation on a proper basis. They said: "We do not comment on leaks or live Ombudsman investigations. We still believe that the Ombudsman is capable of identifying the injustices we have suffered and the appropriate remedy for them.. In applying the scale we will take into consideration the injustice the person affected says they have experienced. Find the perfect money after retirement stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. She made no reference to the second unpublished report which reduces compensation even further by saying people do not need to be compensated for financial loss only worry and confusion. 448.12 per week state pension for all pensioners, old and new, including the frozen pensioner Brit Expats abroad. We should be able to publish details of the legal arguments our lawyers have put to the Ombudsman shortly, but in summary: We believe the Ombudsman's mistaken approach to injustice could mean many women - perhaps hundreds of thousands - receiving less compensation than they otherwise would. The Ombudsman would have to look at injustice again, avoiding the errors highlighted in the judgment. I am still working at 68 years old as well as looking after my 92year old mother with Dementia who now lives with me. PHSO report is a joke the only way we will get any compensation is with a change of Government roll on for hopefully an early general election before any more of us die, You seem to have lost your support for Waspis women, why ? Personally I doubt it. Thank you. Last week Waspi renewed its calls for "answers and action" from the government, saying there was. I will change the reference to 10,000 .I checked my notes of the meeting which records thats Angela mentioned six million people not three million in her introduction when she talked about fair compensation in a one off payment. Sadly for 1983, as Labour manifesto then held pension 60 for men, and we know they could not have risen pension age on men afterwards. Massive struggle ahead for Britons who use up savings, State pension changes could see thousands losing free NHS prescription, Michael Schumacher rare health update given by close friend Jean Todt, Chechen rebels prepare to topple key Putin ally as civil war looms, Harry and Meghan 'highly unlikely' to attend William's US event, Meghan 'disappeared' with photographer and brought 'suitcase' on trip, GB News: Liz Truss blasted as a 'Maggie Thatcher tribute act'. Typically level five cases will be when the person affected has had a marked and damaging effect on their ability to live a relatively normal life. READ MORE:WASPI women welcome new boost in ongoing fight for compensation. The organisation is campaigning to end womens state pension equality and wants women born in the 1950s s to be compensated for them failure of the government to properly inform them of the effects of the six year delay from 60 to 66 in raising their pension age. Also when we get our pension we are told not eligible for carers Why does this matter? Many may have died from the pension age rise and from the pandemic (unable to shield by age in our 60s), but we are still millions of potential voters, born between 1950s to 1980s (victims of pension age rise between 66 to 68). Our judicial review case against the Ombudsman in an nutshell - and what it means for WASPI women. We need you to support us by donating whatever you can to fund our case so that we can challenge the Ombudsmans report and get a better financial outcome for 1950s women. We can not pay these women a fair pension ..do not make me laugh .. .none of the above STARMER .ER like the rest. Express. There is no guarantee as to whether 1950s women will receive any state pension out of this review. His initial investigation report, published in 2021, found clear maladministration in the communication of pensions law changes. But small donations from the 3.6 million women affected and their friends and families will ensure we can cover our costs. I said that you obviously misheard 3.6m as 6m and despite others telling you about your mistake you have refused to see that you were wrong and correct it. Dear Diane Fowley, Grey Swans is now a very different campaign, to gain moral support for creation of a new Over 50s (saves all ages) party, that would grant: We have to remember that the Department of Work and Pensions are only employed by the politicians and did not increase pension age, which they cannot do. The cost-of-living crisis outlined in Labour's Families First Consultation document is hitting the affected women and their families particularly hard. Got something to say? The main targets are the stark inconsistencies between the Ombudsmans Stage 1 report - which rightly found maladministration by the DWP on a massive scale and the Stage 2 report, which finds that maladministration led to no injustice at all in relation to lost opportunities or direct financial losses in any of the cases examined. The Stage 2 report will be the foundation for all decisions on compensation and other remedies. But the Stage 2 report appears to conclude this is inappropriate in the cases of WASPI women because there was too much uncertainty about what would have happened had there been no maladministration. As promised, we are now in a position to share our legal arguments about where the Ombudsman has gone wrong in deciding whether WASPI women have suffered injustice. Liz Truss Chancellor was talking to the International Monetary Fund in America, when he was sacked. The Ombudsman finalised the Stage 2 report on 8 December last year. Follow each other over the cliff edge, Just wish they would get on with it . I am afraid the rest stands.I have read both PHSO reports and it is only partial maladministration and this was not challenged by Waspi.. The DWP failed to carry out a proper Equality Impact Assessment on its policy implementation of 1995 pension act and subsequent laws this breaches the Public Sector Equality Duty part of the Equality Act. In these cases recovery is likely to take a significant amount of time. As always finger on the pulse!what happened to Labours more generous proposal at the last ( or one before) election. DON'T MISS:State pension age is set to rise to 68 - when will you retire? When the Government increased the State Pension age by up to six years without giving us proper notice, our retirement plans were shattered, leaving us disempowered and vulnerable. Under a Labour government, women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1955 would be paid. Find out by adding your postcode or, PIP: You could get up to 608 per month if you have sight conditions, Savings: Britons urged to give cash a boost as many lose money', Pension: Boris Johnson urged to act as women face 'motherhood penalty'. No. Once those papers reach the Ombudsman, he has three weeks to respond with a preliminary defence. WASPI women are going to bed in their coats and rationing food as they wait to see how much compensation they will get for their suffering. Q4: Surely the Ombudsman accepts the WASPI women suffered injustice? sole offer of compensation to 1960s ladies (turning 60 since 2020) giving reasons that are rational based on the evidence and logical; and. A woman getting the basic old pension gets 145.15 per week and top up of pension credit of 37.45 per week so receives a total of 182.60 per week. If as we believe the Stage 2 report is fundamentally flawed because of what it concludes on injustice, there can never be just compensation for the injustices identified. waspi .co .uk. The local group has been campaigning against the pension injustice for 1950s women for six years. WASPI spokeswoman Angela Madden said: So we wait yet again for our answers !!!!!! R v Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration ex p. Balchin No. Click here to have your say on how we can make Britain the best place to grow up and grow old in. We are the ones who have been totally robbed of our Retirement savings - For the self-employed: 129 a week, 560 a month, 6,725 a year. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. The upheaval to their retirement plans has resulted in many having to continue working. ThankYou David for your support and reporting on the plight of All 50s. obfuscate, delay, make up his own rules on standards, minimise, shift the blame, and then if we are very lucky offer a few crumbs in the hundreds of to a minority and then DWP will make it as difficult as possible to apply for. I am not entitled to Pension Credit, I lost around 3Ok in pension over 5 years, lost my additional pension and had to pay NIC for an extra 5 years. Ive read the 2nd report too as it was sent to me by the PHSO as opposed to being leaked to you by someone who should know better. We need to raise at least 100,000 right now to get our case into court and moving forward. There is no appeal against an Ombudsman decision. The Ombudsman comments that it is possible that some women among the millions affected by the 1995 Pensions Act may be able to demonstrate they suffered financial loss. We have quite a bit of fundraising to go to make issuing WASPIs claim this week practical, but every donation takes us closer to this goal. Would their lawyers advise that by reaching the decision to exclude all but the 28 month window from their assessment of maladministration PHSO was irrational (Wednesbury unreasonable) in some way. Clement Attlee won in 1945 against the war hero Winston Churchill and gave us all that we have pretty well lost now. You are supposed to be on the side of ALL 50s women but you seem to be heavily biased towards BT60. There is a Pension Calculator on line where women affected by the pension change can put in their date of birth, to find out how much compensation they can expect. It was Lib Dems Pension Minister between 2010 and 2015 who could have stopped both the Tory and Labour pension age rise laws, but chose to bring them all into law at warp speed, directly causing the misery and early death of us 1950s ladies. I was unable to work after fracturing my back in 2016 and needed that extra money they stole from me to help make alterations to our house, installing a WC on the ground floor and a shower in the bathroom which was paid from the money I receivef from a small pension I cashed in. We will be publishing our legal arguments soon, but for now we want to share the introductory words from the witness statement WASPIs Chair and Director of Finance, Angela Madden, has submitted to the Court. The ombudsman was itself criticised by the campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality in April 2021 due to delays in delivering its verdict. Lets not get into #WaSpiWordplay well be here all night. Only in England is the free prescriptions between 60 and 67 (1960s born began turning 60 from 2020) being considered to end. Find out by adding your postcode or visit InYourArea. It ruled this was maladministration because 1950s women were not given adequate notice of major changes to their State Pension, said Anne Potter, co-ordinator of the Waspi campaign in the Glasgow area. For higher wages. Its not Angela Maddens mess to clean up. If youre going to leak parts of the report, please be accurate about it. Simpson added: All were deprived - in some cases for up to six years - of the pension which they had expected to receive at 60. WASPI has been asking for "fair and fast compensation" and this week called for a one-off payment of between 11,666 and 20,000 for those affected. We cannot be certain about the numbers or the amounts and although the government normally follows Ombudsman recommendations, there is no right to compensation. There is no 6,000 maximum. Only Jeremy Corbyn as leader offered us 31,100 compensation, which was sabotaged by the present Labour leader Starmer, and his fellow saboteurs against Labour winning 2019 general election. The 50s women should be at the top of the list. Something went wrong, please try again later. Express.co.uk repeatedly highlighted the plight facing Waspi women, who often have incredible tales of hardship to tell. Comes amid impacts of sudden stratospheric warming over North Pole, Met Office moves snow timeline for Gloucestershire - it's coming a day earlier, Rural parts of the county could see the white stuff with sleet affecting other areas, Met Office issues 48-hour snow and ice 'disruptive' weather warning for UK, Arctic airmass to bring snow showers to northern parts of UK on Monday and Tuesday. Waspi women have been working to get MPs onside, and have won support from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Lib Dem leader Ed Davies, as well as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Plaid Cymru and even some Tory MPs. The Ombudsman has responded and he is unwilling to change his position, at least for now sometimes public authorities have a rethink when the Court gives permission for a judicial review to proceed (see below) and cases are sometimes settled then. A lack of proper nutrition, hydration and clinical input meant he was not give the best chance of surviving for longer. Indeed, looking at paragraphs 290 to 293 of the provisional report, it is quite possible that there will be no financial remedy at all. She gave the audience a very heavily edited version of the Ombudsmans position saying he backed maladministration which boosted their case. Malad PHSO is solely about 1950sWomen They are now waiting to see what it will decide. A north-east MSP has said it is "appalling but sadly not surprising" more than 220,000 women in the UK will have died waiting for pension compensation by the end of this year. Im sitting here typing, cold . we have been increasingly dying quicker in retirement and I am a registered nurse and I had to stop work in 2019 due to ill health and have live off small pittance from DWP its another 2 years I have to wait to get my pension. As to the numbers that Angela Madden quoted, it sounds like you have simply misheard her or noted it wrongly. Last year, Waspi women received a huge boost when the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman ruled that the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) should have given more notice of moves to raise their state retirement age. Photo: Julien Behal/PA BANKS sold thousands of tracker mortgages to vulture funds - despite having to admit they overcharged on them. The Government's repayment programme, which launched . That support has shown that the step we have taken is the right one. The only way we can challenge the Ombudsman's decision is by a Judicial Review. renationalise energy companies so lowered prices immediately in government. The Women Against State Pension Injustice (Waspi) campaign group has been recruiting senior political figures to support their campaign. Its terrible how we have been treated. Please also be aware that my anger about you leaking the confidential report from the PHSO is more to do with the fact that you are selectively picking parts of the report to suit what appears to be an anti Waspi agenda. If an injustice is found, which again is not certain at this point, then a third stage is to make recommendations to put things right. They insisted that the move had been supported by both the High Court and Court of Appeal, which found it acted entirely lawfully and did not discriminate on any grounds. Labour was not awarding us, as it was not in their published manifesto. No legal case has a certain outcome, but we believe this is a strong one and the Ombudsmans answers to our arguments are not at all convincing. But what happens once we have raised the funds we need? If maladministration is detected, which is not a certainty, then the second stage determines whether this led to an injustice for the complainant. This update charts the way ahead for our case. Its David Henckes mess to clear up by admitting hes made a mistake in his reporting. So sorry to hear of your health problems. He considers there was injustice, but in the cases he looked at closely in Stage 2 of his investigation (the six sample complainants) he concludes there were no lost opportunities and no direct financial loss at all as a result of the DWP maladministration. Hilary Simpson, chair of Waspi 2018, said the lack of notice had devastating effects for thousands of women whose plans for life after 60 were shattered. Thank you David, for your fearless reporting, as always. Despite your claims no campaign has the authority to speak for ALL of us as youve never asked us. There has to be injustice too. And I travelled with a mother who could talk French (so France and Belgium), Italian, German (so also Austria and a language spoken throughout Yugoslavia), and Greek. Pension 60 for 1960s born who have pension age 67 (they started turning 60 from 2020). Previously, the state pension age was set at 60 for women and 65 for men, but this underwent a process of equalisation to ensure gender equality and fairness. Simpson said: 1950s women will not be side-lined, they are not a soft touch, and they are not going away.. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. What is our action against the Ombudsman trying to achieve? all the wrong under handed issues that have been swept under the carpet are still haunting us 68 last month WASPI . The Pensions Act 1995 provided for the State Pension age (SPA) for women to increase from 60 to 65 over the period April 2010 to 2020. Meaning we could also talk to Albanians, Romanians and Bulgarians on the road down to Greece. They told us we would be better off, but they also wiped out any additional pension some of us had earned, in my case 21.30 per week. She then explains the profound disappointment we felt on reading the final Stage 2 report in this way: It felt that we were right back where we started, with our experiences disbelieved and the injustices we have suffered inexplicably being decoupled from the maladministration that was their cause. It seems to me that Angela Madden silence on these reports speak volumes? All/any compensation packages are the business of ALL #50sWomen your permission and/or approval to comment is not sought nor required by me or any #50sWomen excluded from vital information by WaSpi Secret Society that lost its legal representation and placed the Maladministration case in jeopardy. Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged his support for Waspi womens campaign for compensation. All these comments are basically about how much compensation women should get. It is then for the government to decide whether to accept the recommendations. This error also matters. They know full well they high jacked our pensions. I / we need this money, just to survive these next few years. And so much more learned by us 1950s ladies campaigning since 2013. I think the writing is on the wall and you dont need to be a soothsayer to see what is the likely outcome; an apology for past failings and a commitment to get it right in future. Even though there were aspects of the Stage 1 report where we felt the Ombudsman should have gone further, we felt we had been listened to.. WASPI Statement to PHSO's Provisional Draft Second Report 18th August 2022 14469 The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has now circulated a provisional draft of its second report, on the emotional and financial impact of the maladministration, to complainants - but has done so on condition of confidentiality. Q6: How strong is the case and what will happen if enough money is not raised to take it forward?? Years on, we are still seeking justice. . Angela Madden, Waspi's campaign leader did put a figure on compensation for the pensioners for a one off payment -from 10,000 to 20,000 at a cost of 40 billion to 50 billion. We and the barristers working on the case are preparing the detailed legal arguments summarised here (and in more detail in our letter here along) with witness statements and a large bundle of documents for the Court. During the debate before the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2023 was submitted to the House . It must be caused by the DWP maladministration identified in the earlier report- the 28 month delay. & #WaSpi Board Members Nationwide offers Britons a 1million prize draw - could you win? Waspi claims that while the 1995 Conservative government's Pension Act included plans to increase the women's state pension age to 65 - the same as men's - the changes were implemented . The latest findings reaffirm what the WASPI campaigners, which represents many of the 3.8 million affected - including 5,600 women across the Jarrow constituency - have been calling for since the. This got wiped out on the new 2016 changes. I may be barking up the wrong tree but its my thinking. We have done everything asked & more; we & our Employers honoured the Tripartite Agreement by paying all necessary NICs as did Govt too UNTIL Govt quietly not only RENEGED but actually raided the NICs Fund as disclosed in your earlier articles!