Welsh councillors have called for women affected by state pension changes to receive “fair, prompt, and just compensation”

Nicholas Thomas, Local democracy reporter

Councillors in Caerphilly have called for women affected by state pension changes to receive “fair, prompt and just compensation.”

A cross-party group is supporting a proposal urging the UK Government to reimburse women affected by the changes.

Campaigners argue a generation of women born in the 1950s should have been better informed of the rise in the age they qualified for the state pension.

But ministers have twice refused their calls for compensation, despite accepting that information letters could have been sent out sooner.

In Caerphilly, Plaid Cymru councillors Teresa Parry and Charlotte Bishop have presented a notice of motion in support of “women affected by state pension age inequality.”

They will ask the council to note “many women” were “significantly affected by the accelerated increase in the state pension age from 60 to 66.”

The councillors claim a “large number did not receive adequate or timely notice, leaving them without the opportunity to financially prepare for up to six additional years before receiving their state pension.”

This led to “serious financial stress for many” and “hardship caused by failures in communication,” the councillors added.

The council has no powers to provide direct financial support, but the Plaid representatives argue it “can and should stand up for residents” and that “collective action from local authorities strengthens the call for urgent national resolution.”

Their proposed motion has been supported by Labour councillors Elizabeth Davies, Adrian Hussey, Brenda Miles and Walter Williams; Plaid councillors Alan Angel, Haydn Pritchard, Judith Pritchard and John Roberts; and independent councillors Nigel Dix, Kevin Etheridge, Andrew Farina-Childs, Jan Jones and Janine Reed.

It will be debated at a scrutiny committee meeting this week, and if it is backed it will be presented to all councillors at a later date.

The motion also follows local Senedd Member Delyth Jewell’s calls for “justice” for campaigners, to which counsel general Julie James MS said the Welsh Government was pressing Westminster for a “just and satisfactory resolution at the earliest opportunity.”

The UK Government reviewed its original plan to not award compensation at the end of 2025, amid ongoing controversy around that decision.

An ombudsman’s report had found “maladministration” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the mid-2000s, which “led to a delay in DWP writing directly to women about changes in state pension age.”

In January, work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden said the UK Government accepted “individual letters about changes to the state pension age could have been sent earlier.”

But he said the women affected “did not suffer any direct financial loss from the delay”, adding there were doubts an earlier letter would have been likely “to make a difference to what the majority of women knew about their own state pension age.”

However, the government’s latest decision not to award compensation has been challenged by the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign, which said it “cannot and will not accept Mr McFadden’s statement as the final word on the injustice suffered by women like us, nor on whether we should be compensated.”