Whatever the government might hope, the Waspi women issue isn’t going away any time soon
It probably wasn’t the Christmas narrative that the government was hoping for, but the uproar over the treatment of the so-called Waspi women is likely going to be a decision that will come to define contemporary attitudes to British politics. With a very unsatisfactory end to a long and passionately-fought campaign for compensation for women hit by changes to the state pension age, ‘Waspi’ has suddenly become a buzzword for the profound disconnect between contemporary politics and the moral obligations of the state to serve and care for its citizens.
At the heart of the issue was the failure of the Department of Work and Pensions to inform some 3.6 million women born in the 1950s that their pension age entitlement was being brought into line with men. For decades men had started receiving the state pension at 65 and women at the age of 60, but the 1995 Pension Act drew up a phased timetable to remove this disparity between 2010 and 2020. However, in 2010 the government decided to speed this up and – under the 2011 Pensions Act – the new qualifying age of 65 for women was brought forward to 2018.
To make matters worse, and the nub of the current uproar, these changes were not communicated properly and consequently many of those affected mis-planned their retirements and suddenly found themselves having to re-seek work or extend their careers when they suddenly found their long-anticipated state pension didn’t arrive. Some were even forced to sell their homes to make ends meet. It was for the emotional stress and difficulty of this that the Waspi women took their case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), which recommended compensation between £1,000 and £2,950 for each of those affected – at a total cost to the government of some £10.5bn.
Given that this was against the £10,000 per person that the Waspi women had sought, the government’s decision this week to pay out nothing at all was described in many graphic terms by campaigners and their supporters, but the overwhelming response was that it was both ‘an insult’ and ‘a betrayal’. This was particularly the feeling because many Labour politicians while in opposition –including Sir Keir Starmer – had been very happy to be photographed supporting the Waspi campaigners and had made numerous public promises that, if elected, they would ensure absolutely that compensation was paid.
For the government’s part the decision to ignore the Ombudsman – which it can do – has been defended on the grounds of lack of available funds and the ubiquitous unexpected ‘£22m black hole’ that allegedly the Tories have left behind. At a deeper level it is said that the government is relying on a hunch that many in the public domain will have less than total sympathy for the Waspi cause – and for a variety of reasons, not least the expectation to swan off into state funded retirement when life expectancy for women is now well into the 80s. Others have talked about the final salary pensions that many will be able to draw on, and there has even been arguments that women have fought hard for parity with men in the workplace, so a matching of retirement ages is just and fair. In essence, the government is hoping the all too common hope that a sufficient disparity in public support for this particular cause makes it safe ground for controversial – and cost-saving – action.
Moral – or perhaps immoral – Judgement calls like this are the very stuff of government, which is all too often preoccupied with what it can get away with without triggering civil unrest, rather than what it can actually do for its citizens. Throwing Waspi women under the bus has clearly been measured as a reasonable gamble, even though it has little support in parliament, or even from within the Labour party itself. At the heart of these type of decisions is a judgement call about the public mood, but that’s no longer an easy calculation. In generations past you could pretty much list a whole range of assumptions about any section of the public, primarily because society was defined by the kind of class divisions that had been in place – quite literally – since the Dark Ages. Today class is almost impossible to distinguish, as are voting habits or public opinions. For may experts the upper/middle/lower class narrative has been replaced by a more brutal distinction – in work/unemployed. Beyond that, social media and the internet age has ensured that one’s income status is no guarantee whatsoever of positions held on the vitally important moral and social issues of the day – so we have unemployed free market Capitalists just as much as we have champagne socialists.
For governments this presents a particular challenge when it comes to fashioning social policy, and it’s even sharper if legislators stray into experimenting with morally-focussed legislation. This is why increasingly we are seeing a global move towards non-moral governance, and the systematic exclusion of spiritual input of any kind to the concerns of the hour. For instance, at present it is particularly useful for legislators to talk about the decline of Christianity in the West – and in Britain especially – because that very well suits the objective of eradicating moral perspectives from the decision-making process. As a consequence, we all tend to fall into the trap of seeing this conflict as being creeping atheist governance vs the established churches, when in fact it’s more a case of atheist governance vs Christian-based public morality.
In simple terms, governments tend to think that the eradication of the moral compass is linked fundamentally to church structures and hierarchies, rather than to any innate sense of wrong and right in the public psyche. A far more fundamental mistake of judgement is also to presume that public morality can be shaped and changed by legislation. This may be true when it comes to secondary moral principles – those which actually impinge little on the individual’s life or the nature of human society itself – but legislators act at their own risk if they wander into the realm of tampering with primary human worth, and especially interfering with the primeval sense that humanity has of fairness and moral solidarity with others.
In terms of the Waspi women issue, there are many layers of divergent debate about whether or not these women suffered real loss and deprivation as a result of governmental incompetence. An estimated 3.8 million women had to wait up to six years longer to receive the state pension as result of the poorly publicised changes to the pension laws, and that’s a pretty hefty sample of the 67 million UK population. So there will be cases of extremely wealthy women who absolutely don’t need compensation, whilst at the other end of the sample we know there are many low paid women who were forced to look for work again to make ends meet but struggled badly to get jobs because of age-prejudice, or physical and mental health problems. Some had to dig into small savings pots, others even had to sell their property to make ends meet in the face of the climbing cost of living.
The government has chosen to rely on these fluctuations of circumstance and consequent reaction to drive through this cost-saving decision, but unfortunately this has been to ignore the over-arching principle that a much-publicised promise that undoubtedly helped a political party into government has been broken. Whatever one’s personal response to the Waspi women case, the principle of governments saying one with a great noise and resolute promises, then reneging once in power has the capacity to unite factions that might otherwise be diametrically opposed.
It also raises profound questions about the nature and function of government itself. We all know that that there is a philosophic underpinning to some elements of socialism that argues say whatever you need to get hold of power, then do what you want once you have it. Sadly, it seems we’re seeing increasing evidence of this in the current administration, which has also failed to recognise that there are fundamental moral arguments in this instance that – in the public mind at least – outweigh the fiscal arguments about affordability and balancing budgets.
At the very root of consenting employment in modern Britain has been the fairly held assumption that a portion of funds gained from individual human work should be put aside (or rather handed to the government to invest profitably in the short term) to ensure that once a working life is done, the government can then give a portion of this donated income back to guarantee that a retired person’s most basic needs are catered for.
Most history books tell us that this system of work, taxation and return began in the UK on 1st January 1909, when the Old Age Pensions Act was passed, and this is probably why legislators see this principle as a purely recent and still developing innovation. In fact, the concept goes back much further and, here in the UK at least, the Catholic Church can well see itself as one of the innovators of guaranteed pensions payments. As far back as 13th century the Knights Hospitaller had a well-established system of paying retirement pensions to former Knights Hospitaller and Templar. Women were not excluded either – a document in the Archbishop of York’s Registers dated 31st December 1375 includes a warrant to the Prior of St Clement Benedictine monastery to cough up on “an annual pension of 20 and arrears of 40s for two years” to the Prioress of Clementhorpe Priory in York, who clearly felt she had to resort to the courts to get what was due to her!
There is even some evidence to suggest that Roman soldiers sent to Britain under the Emperor Augustus (23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) were granted a generous pension when they hit the post-useful fighting age of 42, a move which was intended to ensure they stayed loyal to Rome and didn’t get any ideas about becoming antagonistic mercenaries. Given the furore that has been stirred up over the treatment of the Waspi women, the present government would do well to consider the wisdom of Emporer Augustus, and the tenacity of the Prioress of Clementhorpe. Repayment for decades of hard, often poorly rewarded and uninspiring employment based on monies given up and return promised, touches a fundamental – and ancient – moral chord in the public psyche, one which transcends all the prejudiced and divisory argument that the government seems to be relying on to drive this controversial decision through.
Not only that, but the government needs to remember the generation of women born in the 1950s, grew up and had their political opinions forms across the 60s and 70s – some of the most radicalising and reactionary decades in modern history. If it’s hoped that some 3.8 million angry women and the universally held principle of fair payment for a lifetime of toil is simply going to go away – the government is likely in for a profound shock.
Joseph Kelly is a Catholic writer and theologian