Echo Comment: Has Labour betrayed the Waspi women?

There are two separate aspects to the case. Firstly, do the women deserve compensation and, secondly, how has Labour behaved towards them.

The second part is the easiest. Labour has behaved terribly towards them. From Keir Starmer downwards, when in opposition, it backed their cause and promised them “fair and fast” compensation. It is little wonder they feel betrayed.

Labour, though, must feel it is again under attack for tidying up Tory mess. It was the Tories in 1995 who equalised the state pension age at 65; it was the Tories in 2010 who saved more money by speeding up the change, and it was the Tories in March, when in power, who did not respond to the ombudsman’s report recommending compensation.

And there’s the answer to the first question: after an impartial examination, the parliamentary ombudsman said women should receive between £1,000 and £2,950 compensation because of Government maladministration.

That would cost up to £10.5bn, a vast sum that the cash-strapped country can ill afford, so again we feel Labour’s pain, but what is the point in having ombudsmen or pay review bodies, if the Government picks and chooses which of their recommendations it will accept. This just heightens the feeling of betrayal.

It is a tough time to be in power, but just as Labour’s withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from all but the very poorest and its imposition of inheritance tax on all farms, this refusal to compensate the Waspi women looks very clumsy – especially as so many members of the Government when in opposition, when talk was very cheap, said they backed them.