PMQs live: Reeves claims millions of Waspi women knew about pension changes

Sir Keir Starmer is set to be grilled at Prime Minister’s Questions, as opposition and backbench Labour MPs fume at the refusal of compensation for the Waspi women.

PMQs will begin at 12pm, with Sir Keir looking to defend the government’s decision.

Stay here for all the latest updates.

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of betraying women affected by changes to the state pension age after using them to get elected.

The prime minister came under fire on Wednesday after work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall rejected calls for 3.8m affected individuals to be given £1,000 and £2,950 each in compensation.

Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali was sent out to defend the government’s decision, but faced a heated Sky News interview in which presenter Kay Burley said Labour had “made a promise time and time again” to affected women before the general election.

Political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:

Waspi spokesperson Debbie de Spon has questioned whether the government’s refusal of the Ombudsman’s ruling is democratic.

Labour rejected a ruling from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) that recommended compensation of typically £1,000 to £2,950 each for the women affected.

“If there’s no mechanism for people to complain and to get true justice, well, is that a democracy?” spokesperson Debbie de Spon said.

“There’s a whole constitutional issue here, apart from just the fact that 3.6 million Waspi women are feeling extremely angry this morning.

“It’s a far, far deeper thing. If we don’t all watch out, what’s next? If you tolerate this then your children will be next, as they say.”

Waspi spokesperson Debbie de Spon was asked for her view on the Labour ministers who once supporter her campaign.

“It seems to be that it’s okay for you to change your view by fiddling with the numbers, by justifying it by using numbers which simply aren’t right.

“We expected a Labour government to offer something different, because they were saying they were the party for change, and we’d had 14 years of Conservative government who deliberately shoved the Waspi issue under the carpet for as long as they possible could.

“We definitely did think that Labour might be providing the change that they claimed, but it’s obviously only changed for certain things and certain people.

“Somehow, women who were born in then in the 1950s who are now in their retirement, aren’t worthy of consideration.”

There is “raw fury” among Waspi campaigners and supporters after the government decided not to provide compensation for state pension changes.

“It’s come as a shock and a huge disappointment,” spokesperson for the Waspi campaign Debbie de Spon told The Independent.

“Well, disappointment is putting it mildly. It’s a shock and we’re devastated. But it means that that we must press our point more clearly there.

“There’s raw fury [on Facebook] understandably. As a campaign we are picking ourselves up and facing this head on. We’ve got to look at what Liz Kendall has said and we’ve got to approach it in the appropriate manner,” Ms de Spon added.

The government’s claim that 90 per cent of women knew about impending state pension changes “simply isn’t true”, a spokesperson for the Waspi campaign has said.

Speaking to The Independent, communications director for the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign Debbie de Spon said: “One of the reasons that Liz Kendall has used… she claimed that 90 percent of women did know, which simply isn’t true.”

“And if you read the ombudsman’s report properly, you will see that that isn’t true. What the Ombudsman took out of the research is that three out of five women didn’t know their state pension age was increasing.

“She’s just using one number out from a cluster of numbers. She’s clung on to that because it’s the highest number. But it doesn’t represent the truth.

“We will be taking legal advice about that because it doesn’t make sense to us.”

A government minister has defended the decision not to award compensation to women affected by changes in the state pension age during a heated clash with Sky News presenter Kay Burley.

The journalist asked Rushanara Ali who middle-class women of a certain age would find more offensive out of prime minister Keir Starmer or MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace during the confrontation on Wednesday (18 December).

The homelessness minister said the situation was “deeply regrettable” and the women had received an apology but compensation would not be a “fair or proportionate” use of taxpayers’ money.

Repeatedly challenged about previous Labour promises to compensate the women, she said: “I go back to the point about the lessons that need to be learned, and the fact that this government has apologised for that delay.”

Watch the clash here:

The government has announced it will not compensate up to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age.

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall rejected calls for the individuals to be awarded between £1,000 and £2,950 each, while claiming she understood why many were unhappy about the issue.

“I know there are women born in the 1950s who want and deserve a better life, they have worked hard in paid jobs and in bringing up their families,” she said.

The Labour government is now facing a barrage of criticism from MPs and campaigners over the decision, some of which is coming from within its own party.

Jabed Ahmed reports:

The rate of price rises in the UK increased to 2.6 per cent in November, as a hike in tobacco duty and petrol costs drove inflation higher.

The inflation level swung back above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target in October, largely because of household energy bills being pushed up as the price cap rose.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said the figures are a “reminder that for too long the economy has not worked for working people”, while Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride blamed a “series of irresponsible and inflationary decisions” from the Treasury.

At the end of October, taxes paid on cigarettes and other tobacco products increased in line with inflation, which is likely to be a major driver of higher inflation last month, according to economists.