WASPI chief’s furious ultimatum over DWP compensation dispute

The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign leader has issued a stark five-word warning to Downing Street amid the ongoing DWP compensation row, saying they “cannot just walk away”. WASPI president Angela Madden promised her group would step up efforts to force the government to address their grievances.

The development follows Parliament and the Health Ombudsman’s suggestion to MPs that some women could receive compensation that exceeds the £1,000 to £2,950 range originally proposed in their recent report on the matter. Speaking to the Express, Ms Madden said: “We will be putting as much pressure as possible now to get this properly debated in Parliament.”

“The Ombudsman brought this before Parliament. They know Parliament has to deal with it. It has to be all MPs speaking for all their constituents.”

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She emphasized the need for fairness, saying: “There needs to be a balance between today’s taxpayers and yesterday’s victims, but that is true of all the issues the Government has to deal with. They are catastrophically unable to understand and walk away. We have parliamentarians from all parties who support us a lot”.

Earlier this week, Ms Madden put her case to the Work and Pensions Committee, outlining a strategy to compensate the 3.8 million women affected by the issue. With a backbench debate scheduled for May 16, Ms Madden confirmed campaigners would be monitoring the event closely.

She stated: “We don’t know the exact time yet, we understand it will be in the afternoon, it’s either 12.30pm or 2.30pm, but it hasn’t been scheduled yet. The difficulty is a backbench business debate. is that it can be overtaken by government business, so it’s difficult to plan around it.”

“We think a lot of women will want to go to Parliament and listen, so we’re still thinking about what to do. Once it’s written correctly on the order sheet, we’ll make a decision on that.”

The campaign leader noted that some WASPI members would likely sit in the public gallery to watch the debate. WASPI campaigners also plan to meet with the APPG next week to discuss the details of the PHSO report in more depth.