The north Derbyshire based chief of national campaign group WASPI has accused Government ministers of ‘gaslighting’ campaigners in their fight for pension compensation.

The government has said it will reconsider a decision made in 2024 not to compensate Fifties-born women for the way state pension changes were communicated, after new evidence came to light. However, WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) claim that the evidence, which has not been disclosed, was from one of the DWP’s own surveys in 2007.

In a letter to the campaign group’s lawyers, the Government says that it will take no further steps to defend WASPI’s legal challenge to the decision not to award compensation which it says is ‘academic’ given the reconsideration announcement.

Angela Madden, who chairs WASPI and lives near Chesterfield, said: “WASPI are challenging the decision the Government made last December after the country’s longest running Parliamentary Ombudsman investigation, followed by months of deliberation.

Angela Madden, who chairs WASPI and lives near Chesterfield, (centre) with other WASPI campaigners.

placeholder image — Angela Madden, who chairs WASPI and lives near Chesterfield, (centre) with other WASPI campaigners.

“The previous Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, confidently told Parliament there were “two facts—that most women knew the State Pension age was increasing and that letters are not as significant as the Ombudsman says” and that they meant “that there should be no scheme of financial compensation to 1950s-born women in response to the Ombudsman’s report.

“This was, of course, complete rubbish and a gaslighting denial of WASPI women’s lived experience.

“The Government seems to accept that it got at least one of those crucial so called ‘facts’ completely wrong because officials did not show her a DWP-commissioned report that completely contradicted it.

“That is scandalous – and all the more so because the Government has, until now with the hearing just a few weeks away, been defending our legal case on the basis that it is hopeless.”

“It has said it will reconsider, and this time the Minister will be shown the withheld report. Why did that not happen in the first place? Why was that basic mistake not admitted when WASPI began its legal case? Why has the reconsideration not already happened?

“We do not know the answers to these questions yet. But we do know the Government is desperate to avoid a judge scrutinising its decision-making and so backpedalling away from the imminent hearing.”

WASPI has raised more than £250,000 to fund their legal challenge and were set to face down senior Government lawyers in the High Court on December 9 and 10. Angela said: “The Government needs to accept that its decision is legally flawed in all the ways WASPI argues and start afresh properly but speedily. It has not – yet - so the December hearing may still be needed.”

Gary Smith, general secretary of GMB, said: “GMB Union has long supported Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) and has always said the Government must resolve the injustice.

“Clearly the economy has been left in tatters by the Conservative Government, but those women born in the 1950s should not have to carry the can.

“We asked the Government to reconsider its decision earlier this year; now they are doing so and the WASPI women must now get justice.”