As a ‘cuspy Waspi’ woman, I have another reason to be furious with Labour’s pensions betrayal

I’ve always been pleased that I was born at the end of the Fifties. It was a time when you could easily get a GP appointment, and when schools had new buildings. War-time rationing was over. Clothes were colourful, toys were plentiful, and I had the Sixties music of The Beatles, Dusty Springfield and The Monkees as the soundtrack of my childhood.

But now the hand of fate seems much crueller. The card it has dealt me is one labelled “Waspi woman”.

Being born in 1959, months before the cutoff point, means I just crept under the wire when it comes to being part of the cohort of women who have had all their plans for old age thrown up in the air, thanks to the equalising of the state pension age. I am a Waspi on the cuspy.

The final blow came yesterday when the work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced that we would get no compensation from the government for the changes, despite previous support from Labour politicians who backed the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign.

The first plan to change the state pension age came in 1995 when John Major’s Tory government decided to equalise it. In other words, everyone would retire at 65, rather than women getting their pension early at 60. It was to be phased in slowly, between 2010 and 2020. Then, the coalition government sped things up, bringing in the new qualifying age of 65 by 2018. Next, came raising the qualifying age for the state pension to 66 for everyone.

Shifting these goalposts so often means that I’m now going to get my state pension next year, six years on from when I first thought I would receive it.

What does that mean to my bank balance? If I add up the six years of state pension I would have got from 2019, I’m down a whopping £59,000.

The parliamentary ombudsman has backed the Waspi campaign, agreeing that the government did not do enough to warn women about these changes. I don’t recall any government letter ever coming my way – but, fortunately, I could afford to save into a private pension scheme and had a financial adviser who pointed out the reforms.

But being warned does not make up for change: by the time the government started talking about this, I had been assuming I’d get the state allowance from 60, so I hadn’t put aside as much as I needed if my state pension age is 65 or 66. In other words, my planning, thanks to the government, is screwed.

Sticking more into my pot now will never make up for what could have been accruing interest for 35 years or more. I am going to have a poorer old age.

It has been gratifying to have politicians support you over this debacle. Back in 2019, when I was fuming over no longer being eligible for the state pension that year, Angela Rayner talked about Waspi women’s “stolen money”. “We’ll right that injustice”, she said.

Sir Keir Starmer joined in the thumping of the previous government, and you can still find photos of Liz Kendall on her own website, standing shoulder to shoulder with Waspi campaigners, promising a fair solution.

All the talk now from Kendall and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is about how hard up the country is and that it can’t afford even a couple of thousand pounds compensation for each of the 3.5 million women affected. But this is not just about actual money – and £2,000 wouldn’t go far in denting my own losses anyway. It’s about sticking to your word.

Being a Waspi woman has certainly made a difference to me that goes beyond cash. It has shown that you are never too old to learn. And I’ve learnt the hard way that you can’t trust a politician’s promises.

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