John Oxley: The WASPI women have a real sting in their tale – but it should not sway a decision to say no

John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.

The WASPI women are starting to feel like the campaign that cannot be killed.

This week, the government announced a further review of the decision to refuse compensation to those who lost out from changes to pension ages. This is primarily driven by an impending judicial review, which the government apparently feared it would lose. It may well result in the same decision, but for campaigners, it is a chance to extend the fight, hoping someone will see the political advantage in rewarding them.

If that happens, it will be a grave mistake, both fiscally and for the way government works in the UK.

Even the limited compensation suggested by the Ombudsman could cost up to £10bn. This is money the state can ill afford, which would have to be found by borrowing or even greater taxation. A large portion of that would be paid to people who do not really need it and can live comfortably without such “redress”, while those who have genuinely suffered can probably be addressed by other means, like pension credit.

There are bigger issues here, however, about the relationship between people and the state. Yielding to the WASPI campaign could set dangerous precedents, hindering future governments’ ability to restrain spending. Given the state of the economy and future demographic trends, this could prove a serious impediment to necessary action on both pensions and other benefits. The inability to cut here, or the need to effectively protect individuals from the adverse effects of policy, will make the necessary changes much harder. So will having an example of a victory against the government.

Fundamentally, this is a debate about personal responsibility and the way the state functions. The central argument of the WASPI women is that they had arranged their lives around the expectation of the state pension kicking in at 60, and suffered detriment when it didn’t. This was, ultimately, rooted in their own misconception. The pension is a benefit, like any other, and its terms remain entirely at the government’s discretion. It should never be treated as guaranteed.

We accept that every other benefit or disbenefit in the system works in this way. Plenty of people over the years have lost out through changes to disability or working-age benefits. Taxation moves up and down. A young person born on the 1^st September 1994 had a far more expensive Student Loan Plan than one born just 24 hours before, through no fault of their own. Indeed, the WASPI women had far more chance to prepare themselves than many other affected groups.

The main WASPI complaint focuses on the DWP’s failings in informing them about the change in pension age. This is an approach that wholly denies their own agency. This was not a secret scheme; it was not a government cover-up. It was in the news, it was researchable, and the government went to some lengths to notify those who would be affected. The argument that the state needs to tell you directly if any changes are affecting you is infantilising. We should expect people to take the information available into account when making their plans, rather than spoon-feeding it to them.

More than that, we need to be realistic about the government’s powers to change its fiscal programmes. As a country, we face significant economic and budgetary challenges. The pensions move is a response to this – downstream of an ageing population and the changing dependency ratios. If we are ever to get on top of these things, governments must be able to make changes that mean some people lose out. If every change is met with years of protests and multiple legal challenges, it will diminish governments’ ability to act decisively, and we will all suffer.

The proper forum for these challenges is the ballot box. Our elected representatives make these decisions, and we hold them to account through elections. The ever-expanding range of legal campaigns and challenges undermines this. The fact is that elected governments passed the increases to the pension age, and no one has been elected on a platform to change it, even though it is now 30 years since the law was first passed. Indeed, the fullest embrace of the WASPI cause, by Corbyn and McDonnell, was part of a programme that was roundly rejected by the electorate.

As voters, we must also accept that we will, at times, be the ones who lose out. In times of economic challenges, the government must apportion the pain fairly. Our chances of fiscal continence will be ruined if cuts can’t be passed on to the relatively affluent. Just as with the Winter Fuel Payment, we should accept that many older people do not need the money and focus on those who do. As Conservatives, we should reject efforts to expand universal benefits and the higher taxation they entail.

The WASPI case threatens to embody all that is worst about our politics. If this latest reconsideration is successful, it would be a triumph of judicial wrangling and special pleading over democratic forces and government decisions. It would compound the idea that difficult decisions cannot be carried through and implicitly embed the concept of a government guarantee against personal policy impacts. Labour should stand firm against it if it intends to retain any credibility, not just for itself, but for the concept of government decision-making.

It is a test – both constitutionally and politically – of whether the government can still say “no”. Getting it wrong would blur the line between expectation and entitlement. Future decades are likely to involve decisions more challenging than this. Setting the precedent that governments can’t—or won’t—make them will make this more complicated. A maelstrom of empathy and political cynicism could leave governments incapable of doing their job at all.

The equalisation of pension ages was the right decision then and remains so now: fair between the sexes, essential for sustainability, and unavoidable in an ageing society. It was an act of responsibility. The temptation to reverse it, or to offer compensation as a salve for political convenience, would send precisely the wrong signal. The real message for the WASPI women now should be to stop stringing out their campaigns and their challenges.

They may feel they came off unfairly, but sometimes life has to be unfair—and it is essential for the functioning of governments that it can be.