A Tory minister has repeatedly refused to say when WASPI
Women will find out if they'll finally get compensation. Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride declined to confirm whether there'll be a decision before the general election. He is under huge pressure to announce payouts after a damning report last month said hundreds of thousands of victims should get between £1,000 and £2,950. Failings at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) meant women born in the 1950s weren't properly informed the state pension age would rise - meaning they couldn't plan for their retirement. As a result many were plunged into poverty. The Government faces calls to announce a compensation scheme, with campaigners saying one victim dies every 13 minutes on average. Pressed by Ed Balls on Good Morning
Britain on what happens next, Mr Stride said there were "strong feelings" for and against awarding compensation, which could cost up to £10.5billion. Ministers are under pressure to announce a compensation scheme ( Image: Manchester Evening News) He said: "There'll be no undue delay in us coming forward, but I do want to have sufficient time. There are very strong feelings about this on all sides of the argument as to whether conversation should be paid or not. "And I do want to make sure that we get that judgment right." Pressed whether it would happen before the
election he said: "I'm not going to get drawn into a specific timeframe, but I but I am making that very clear that this is a serious matter." And Mr Stride told the Today programme: "I'm not going to put a precise time limit on it, but we do need to look at these things very carefully." Pressed on whether a compensation scheme would be set up in the next six months he said: "I'm not a genius that you're trying to coax me into nailing down a precise timeframe on it. "I think I owe it to everybody to really make sure that the guiding light in this process is that it is thorough, and that it is conclusive because it has gone on for an awfully long time." Last month the The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman suggested hundreds of thousands of victims should receive between £1,000 and £2,950 due to DWP failings. More than 3.8million women weren't properly informed that the state pension age was rising - meaning they couldn't plan for their retirement. Campaigners say the average victim missed out on over £50,000 in pension payments as a result. The PHSO said it is now taking the "rare but necessary" step of getting Parliament to intervene because of the "scale of the impact of DWP’s maladministration" and the urgent need to put it right. But the Government is yet to formally respond. After the report came out, Angela Madden, who heads the Women Against State Pension Inequality ( WASPI ) campaign, told The Mirror : "The average is one woman dying every 13 minutes, which is a sobering thought. We are at that age now, this is why we want the government to do something fast." She accused the Government of having "no desire" to tackle the injustice faced by millions of women born in the 1950s. "We believe that if Rishi Sunak had the political will he could be solving this tomorrow," she said. "He could solve this before the general election , but we don't think he will. I believe there's no desire in Government to do anything about it until their hand is forced." Failures by the DWP meant millions of women born in the 1950s didn't know the state pension age was rising from 60 to 65, and then to 66. This plunged tens of thousands into poverty, and tragically an estimated 270,000 women have died without receiving payment or an apology. Join our Mirror Politics
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