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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.
“And now you’ve literally said, ‘nah, sorry, it’s not happening’,” Ms Burley said.
Ms Ali repeated Ms Kendall’s apology on behalf of the government to women affected by the change, which hiked the state pension age from 60 to 65, with millions claiming they were not properly aware.
She said: “Lessons need to be learned for the future and I absolutely understand this is really, really difficult.
“We will need to make sure these things do not happen again.”
It came after a watchdog criticised the government’s decision not to compensate women affected by the way changes to the state pension age were communicated.
The government accepted a finding of maladministration by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) and apologised for there being a 28-month delay in writing to 1950s-born women, but ruled out paying up to £10.5bn in compensation.
Rebecca Hilsenrath, the ombudsman, told Times Radio: “It’s great that the Government are saying that our intervention will lead to service improvements and it’s fair to say also that people who come to us, overwhelmingly, are motivated by wanting things to improve for other people.
“But what we don’t expect is for an acknowledgement to be made by a public body that it’s got it wrong but then refuse to make it right for those affected.”
On Monday Ms Kendall insisted that denying compensation was the “right decision and the fair decision” because most women knew the state pension age was increasing, sending letters earlier wouldn’t have made a difference for most “and the proposed compensation scheme isn’t fair or value for taxpayers’ money”.
But her decision drew sharp criticism because of her own previous support for the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) campaign group, as well as that of prime minister Sir Keir.
In an interview in 2022 as Labour leader, the PM said: “All your working life you’ve got in mind the date on which you can retire and get your pension, and just as you get towards it, the goalposts are moved and you don’t get it, and it’s a real injustice.
“We need to do something about it. That wasn’t the basis on which you paid in or the basis on which you were working.” Ms Kendall’s website describes her as a “long-standing supporter” of Waspi women.
The group accused the government of making “an unprecedented political choice to ignore the clear recommendations of an independent watchdog which ordered ministers urgently to compensate Waspi women nine months ago”.
Chair Angela Madden said: “This is a bizarre and totally unjustified move which will leave everyone asking what the point of an ombudsman is if ministers can simply ignore their decisions? It feels like a decision that would make the likes of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump blush.”
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