Government agrees to WASPI’s Conditions to withdraw the Judicial Review

2nd December 2025

Government agrees to WASPI’s conditions for speedy and thorough reconsideration of the response to Ombudsman injustice findings and compensation proposals

Leading campaigning organisation WASPI has been pursuing a judicial review challenge to a decision made last December to reject the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s second report on DWP maladministration. The pensions minister responsible, Liz Kendall, claimed that her “difficult decision” was nonetheless justified by “logical errors” in the Ombudsman’s report about how many women would have benefitted from earlier letters informing them their state pension age had changed. However, thanks to WASPI’s judicial review, it emerged that important DWP-commissioned research on this very topic had been wrongly withheld from her. On 11 November, her successor, Pat McFadden, announced the Government was withdrawing its decision and would reconsider.

Once a public authority decides to reconsider its decision, any judicial review challenging it will normally come to an end. However, until this morning, WASPI had concerns about the reconsideration process and so the court had arranged a special hearing tomorrow to decide whether the trial scheduled for 9 and 10 December should proceed. Both court dates will now be cancelled because, following several days of negotiations, WASPI has won an agreement with the Government which gives 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.

WASPI’s Chair, Angela Madden said today:

“Yet again, WASPI has held its nerve and yet again, virtually at the steps of the court, the Government has backed down, this time accepting last year’s decision denying the huge injustice suffered by WASPI women simply cannot withstand scrutiny. Today’s agreement on speedy and thorough reconsideration is welcome. But the Government should be in no doubt that WASPI stands ready to return to court early in the New Year if it yet again fails to do the right thing by accepting the reality of injustice caused by DWP maladministration and the compelling need to offer meaningful remedies to WASPI women. There must be no more delay and no more denials.

We want to thank our supporters and donors who have generously and unwavering supported us through this latest stage of our challenge.  Even yesterday there was a heartening response to our call for further support for the hard work being done by our legal team for the hearing scheduled tomorrow.”

This obviously means there will be no option to watch a hearing from the High Court tomorrow because this is no longer necessary.