Frequently Asked Questions

Because of the way the increases to the State Pension age were brought in for women born in the 1950s (on or after 6th April 1950-5th April 1960), 3.6 million women have been hit particularly hard. If you fit within the above dates, YOU ARE A WASPI woman.

We are angry that we have been treated unfairly and unequally just because of the day we were born. Significant changes to the age we receive our State Pension have been imposed upon us with little or no notice and much faster than we were promised – some of us have been hit by more than one increase.

Some women campaigning for justice don’t want to be WASPI women. They don’t want what we are asking for, which is compensation for the maladministration by the DWP already found by the Ombudsman.  Instead, they want full restitution of their lost pensions.  We therefore don’t claim to represent ‘all’ 50s women.  If you support the aim of compensation as above, YOU ARE A WASPI WOMAN.  Being a WASPI woman isn’t just that you’re cross about losing up to six years of your State Pension – we’re all furious about that.  However, the law was changed by democratic process in Parliament. We can and have challenged the DWP about the maladministration of not informing us properly.  The Ombudsman says we should be compensated.

The Judicial Review was withdrawn because, following several prior days of negotiations, WASPI won an agreement with the Government which gave WASPI women the best possible chance of a speedy decision and holding the Government to account if it makes further legal errors.

The agreement goes considerably further than Mr McFadden’s Parliamentary statement on reconsideration because:

• the Government has now committed to completing its reconsideration within 12 weeks (unless there is very good reason not to do so and the excuse for delay can then be scrutinised by the court);
• it has also committed to consider the whole decision afresh, taking into account all relevant evidence, not just the material withheld from Ms Kendall; and
• the Government will pay over half of WASPI’s legal costs, leaving WASPI with a significant war chest to re-launch a judicial review challenge if the Government makes legal errors in its new decision.

Overall, through its judicial review challenge, WASPI has succeeded in:

• exposing all the evidence considered by the Secretary of State when she reached her December 2024 decision to reject the Ombudsman’s findings.
• laying bare a number of serious mistakes made by the DWP, including the failure to provide the minister with key research, which Mr McFadden accepted meant the rejection could no longer stand;
• securing the agreement of the Government to withdraw its December 2024 decision and to reconsider it quickly.

There’s a common misunderstanding that our National Insurance contributions are kept in a pot for our retirement.  This isn’t how it works. We have no pension pot.  The current State Pensions are paid by those currently working and paying National Insurance Contributions (NICs) – so the workers of today pay the pensioners of today. By the time we retire, our NICs have already been spent.

Please visit our website to join as a member. Joining WASPI – Women Against State Pension Inequality – WASPI

For queries regarding existing membership please email waspimembers@gmail.com.

No compensation has been agreed by the Government at this stage although they do acknowledge that there has been maladministration and have apologised for it.

The Ombudsman gave the job of devising a compensation scheme to Parliament, who so far have not had the opportunity to do so.  Until that happens there is no plan as to how any compensation will be paid.

We are advising women to ignore posts on social media and emails which offer to help them claim compensation.  These are scam operations, and you should not provide your personal details to such sites.

We understand your position and you are absolutely entitled to campaign for full restitution if you want to.

Our call for fair and fast compensation for the maladministration found by the Ombudsman does not prevent you from doing that in any way, not least because our Campaign is about the Ombudsman’s decision-making on the injustices women have suffered, and not the loss of State Pension.

WASPI are not campaigning for full restitution. We do not claim to represent all 1950s women.  We don’t seek to impact on any other campaign which has a different ask.  However we will be pressing forward with achieving the best justice we can for as many WASPI and other 1950s born women as possible.

Many women say they didn’t receive a letter.  However, the Ombudsman concluded in his Stage 1 report that no mail shot is 100% successful.  In his Stage 2 report he took into consideration the dates on which the DWP stated letters were sent to calculate when women should have received one, had there been no maladministration.  These can be seen on our website here Freedom-of-Information-request.pdf

We don’t know at this stage what the terms would be of any redress recommended by the Ombudsman.  That would be up to Parliament to determine. WASPI’s position is that the estates of 1950s born women who have died but suffered injustice as a result of maladministration should receive the compensation those women would have received – otherwise the Government benefits from the delay in providing a just remedy which would be fundamentally wrong.

In March 2024 the Ombudsman found that 1950s-born women had suffered ‘injustice’ as a consequence of the DWP’s maladministration. This was because the DWP’s delay in writing to them about changes to their State Pension age meant they had been denied the opportunity to make informed choices and lost a sense of personal autonomy and financial control. The Ombudsman recommended that the affected women should receive compensation and an apology.  You can read the Ombudsman’s report on his investigation here.

In this House of Commons Library document Increases in the State Pension age for women born in the 1950s, it states:

“The total cost of reversing the 1995 and 2011 Pensions Acts over the 16-year period 2010/2011 to 2025/26 is estimated at £215.2 billion.  Of this, £181.4 billion goes to women and £33.8 billion* goes to men.

Around £63.9 billion (30% of the total) relates to financial years that are already over (2010/11 to 2018/19.”

Therefore, the saving to the Treasury by increasing the State Pension age for 1950s women is £181.4 billion.

*£33.8 billion is the saving from raising men’s pension age by one year.

We are often asked by sympathetic journalists for case studies, and we use women’s stories to evidence to Select Committees and MPs the true nature of our issue.  If you would be prepared to speak to a journalist, please could you let us have your phone number and email address. Usually, they will ask for a photograph, and to use your name.  You can email your story to waspicomms@gmail.com.

Our campaign is not about the change to the State Pension age itself; it’s about the lack of notice of that change.  Although women born in the 1960s have had an increase of six years to their SPa, they received a much longer period of notice than women born in the 1950s. The DWP did finally get around to writing to all women in 2012.  This meant that women born in the mid 1950s had an 18-month or two-year notice of a rise of nearly six years to their State Pension age.  Women born in the early 1960s had a notice period of at least eight years, and much longer for most 60s women.

In order for us to be able to instruct lawyers and pursue litigation. This means we have a legal entity and with governance and regulations that are recognised.

A company structure gives the Campaign’s Directors and members’ limited liability of £1.  It also helps us organise the campaign with transparency and well set up widely understood financial procedures and rules, and allows us to fundraise as a body, rather than a group of individuals.

Our company name is WOMEN AGAINST STATE PENSION INEQUALITY LTD and our Company registration number is: 10380633

This is standard practice for non-profit organisations that require corporate status. A company limited by guarantee is primarily  so they retain their money within the company in order to reinvest in its operations rather than distributing profits to Directors, shareholders or members. (In our case we don’t have shareholders.)

No. It’s a not-for-profit company. None of the Board members are being paid. In fact, none of the volunteers are paid. We are not planning to make any surpluses, as all the funds will be used on the legal action and the campaign costs.

No, we have not registered as a Charity. It is a campaign, and as such doesn’t meet the objectives for charitable status.

To view the Members’ Terms and Conditions, please Click here 

We are unable to take donations by cheque or PayPal or Apple pay.

You can donate via our website by using the Donate option, alternatively if you would prefer to make a bank transfer donation please email waspicomms@gmail.com for our bank details.

We’ve had some questions about money not been debited straight away when donating to Crowdjustice. Here’s what it says on the Crowdjustice website. “For stretch targets, donors’ cards are charged 24-48 hours after the pledge is made. Once the initial target is met, the campaign moves into the stretch target phase. During this period, all funds pledged are collected weekly and transferred to the lawyer or organization every Wednesday. This means donors’ cards are charged promptly after making a pledge, rather than waiting for a specific target to be reached.”

Donations to Crowdjustice are ring fenced for legal costs.

Donations to the WASPI Campaign will be used for general campaign work, unless you specify otherwise.

It’s common for a donor’s bank to initially display a £0.00 transaction when processing a donation, especially for online transactions or through security checks. This £0.00 is a placeholder and acts as an authorization of your card to prevent fraudulent activity. The actual donation amount will then be charged separately.

Thank you very much for your donation, and for getting in touch with us about what is a misleading categorisation from STRIPE, the payment processor.

What has actually happened is that your payment details have been saved. What STRIPE does automatically is set your details up so that if you wish to donate again it will be easier for you. It’s their way of saying that any recurring payments in future have been enabled. I can guarantee that you haven’t set up a direct debit or anything like that.

The Crowdjustice explanation of this is here:

https://support.crowdjustice.com/en/articles/10435682-why-is-my-donation-showing-as-a-recurring-payment

Sorry that you have been inconvenienced by this categorisation, and thanks again for your support.