The BBCChancellor Rachel Reeves has defended her decision to reject compensation for women affected by changes to the state pension age after a backlash.
She said the “vast majority” of women knew the changes were coming, and “as chancellor I have to account for every penny spent by the taxpayer.”
However, some MPs have called on the government to backtrack on the decision, with the Conservatives calling it a “betrayal”.
Campaigners say the 3.6 million women born in the 1950s were not properly informed of the state pension age increase to bring them on par with men.
“We’re certainly not giving up the fight,” said Debbie de Spoon, membership director of the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WSP) campaign.
The government’s decision comes despite an independent government review recommending compensation in March.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, who wrote the review and head of the Health Service Ombudsman, told Times Radio that although the government accepted it had delayed writing women born in the 1950s by 28 months, and apologised, But he refused to pay the compensation.
“What we don’t expect is for a public body to admit it’s wrong but then refuse to make it right for the people affected,” he said.
Ms Reeves said she understood campaigners were “disappointed by the decision”, but the Parliamentary Ombudsman said “around 90 per cent of women know these changes are coming”.
“I did not decide that it would be the best use of taxpayers’ money to pay an expensive compensation bill for something that most people knew was happening,” he added.
The government has said the compensation could cost up to £10.5bn.
But Ms de Spoon said many Waspi women “didn’t know” about the pension changes, and even to this day women are saying: “I never got the letter, when I got the letter So leave it.”
He added that former Conservative chancellor George Osborne had saved more than £180bn by raising the state pension age and “boasted that it was the easiest money he had ever made”.
“We are asking for a small part of it as compensation for the government’s failure,” he said.
Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffiths said the decision was a “betrayal”.
He said cabinet ministers “lined up, had their picture taken with Waspi women, talked about how they were going to redress this injustice.”
“And now they are committing this injustice not only to Waspi women, but to everyone who has trusted this government, whether it’s businesses, family farmers, or pensioners,” he told the BBC. are dependent on winter fuel payments.”
He said “we don’t know” whether a Conservative government would have paid compensation because they were voted in before the decision was made.
The then Conservative-run Department for Work and Pensions told the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman when it reported in March why it could not pay.
It cited “the costs involved, the time it would take, the amount of resources involved, and the negative impact that providing treatment would have on being able to maintain other services.”
Ms de Spoon told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the government’s decision was “extremely disappointing” and that many members of the Labor cabinet had been “very supportive of Waspi” over the years.
“We think it’s time we backed some of that up,” he said.
What is the Wasp campaign and who is affected?
The 1995 decision to raise the pension age to 65 affected about 3.6 million women.
The plan was to phase this transition from 2010 to 2020.
But the 2010 coalition government decided to speed it up.
Under the Pensions Act of 2011, the new qualifying age of 65 for women was brought forward in 2018, affecting 2.6 million women.
The Waspi campaign group is pushing for compensation because it says the government has failed to tell them about the changes – or provide adequate notice.
He previously suggested some women should receive £10,000 each at a cost of £36bn.
Nine months ago, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman recommended compensation of between £1,000 and £2,950 for each victim, following a six-year investigation.
Ms de Spoon said: “It makes a mockery of the system if [government] They can cherry pick which parts of this investigation they choose to accept.”
The Liberal Democrats previously said the stance “sets a very worrying precedent” in rejecting the ombudsman’s findings.
Labor MP Brian Leishman said he was “shocked” by the decision.