WASPI women issued 'no compensation scheme' update over DWP payouts worth £2,950

WASPI women issued 'no compensation scheme' update over DWP payouts worth £2,950

by · Birmingham Live

A Department for Work and Pensions compensation update has been issued to WASPI women - as Lords say: "To be absolutely clear". There has been no response to the report urging the DWP to handout £2,950 compensation to women impacted, Lords have confirmed.

This week, Baroness Sherlock said: "My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising that last point. To be absolutely clear, because there has been no response to the report, there is no compensation scheme. Anyone claiming to offer it is scamming and nobody should touch it—please can that message go out loud and clear. I understand my noble friend’s general point, and I know he will understand the position that this Government are in.

"At the risk of boring myself, never mind the House, all I can do is repeat that the Government are looking very closely at the findings of the ombudsman and will respond as soon as is practicable." Ms Sherlock said: "My Lords, just to be clear, I am not making any assumptions about anything. In a sense, this is about when people were born.

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"For example, we know that around 3.5 million 1950s-born women were impacted by state pension changes, as were a group of men. Most of those people have now reached state pension age, but I think there are 790,000 people born in the 1950s who have not yet reached that age. I am not saying that anything in this area is straightforward—it is not—but I understand the noble Baroness’s warning that any attempt to communicate with groups of people will need to be done carefully and with precision."

"My Lords, the Minister has outlined that she cannot currently give a date, but is she certain that this group of women is clearly defined in the department? There are representative groups, but when a decision is made, does the DWP know exactly whom they need to communicate with?" asked Baroness Beveridge, from the Conservative Party.

Lord Davies of Brixton warned his fellow peers in the House of Lords that the delay "is leaving the people affected prey to scammers, who are offering to assist them in making claims", adding that "this issue needs to be resolved as quickly as practical".