NEW - this week's Weekly Constitutional online column What the Waspi legal claim tells us about UK law and policy By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th... - ThreadSky

davidallengreen.bsky.social • 3 days ago

NEW - this week's Weekly Constitutional online column

What the Waspi legal claim tells us about UK law and policy

By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/the-weekly-constitutional/69402/what-the-waspi-legal-claim-tells-us-about-uk-law-and-policy

Comments

amdismal.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think there should be compensation, but this should only be in the news. Anyone that applied for it would then automatically disqualify themselves, as they would have proven that they see the news! /s

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ho ho

ukanarchist.bsky.social•3 days ago

It tells me that for 14 years they managed to never speak to a pension advisor, read a newspaper, talk to friends or family about pension advice, manage to make any plans for their retirement ages or how they wanted to live on their pension, and are running entirely on entitlement.

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

Have you read the Ombudsman report?

ukanarchist.bsky.social•3 days ago

No what does it say?

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

What your reply tells me is that you form and express strong opinions without any regard to the evidence.

Which is fair enough, but it hardly compelling to anyone else.

ukanarchist.bsky.social•3 days ago

Oooh well, I form opinions based on what I read avoiding anything published by lovely Mr Murdock ,but that's just me.

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

The Ombudsman report was published by a public body.

billheywood.bsky.social•3 days ago

The argument “we wanted to retire 7+ years earlier than you lot and we demand you pay for it” just isn’t persuasive

It particularly doesn’t work when the generation in question is the wealthiest in history to retire

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

Where did you get that argument from, Bill?

That is not the Wapsi argument - and it certainly is not in the post you are commenting on.

Did you just invent it?

billheywood.bsky.social•3 days ago

I understand the legal discussion, I just think the proceedings are pointless

If they win on every point, the taxpayer still won’t want to cough up

This is a political issue about tax and spend and will play out in that arena, not in court

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

This is not their "argument" as such (they dress that up with much bollix about not getting letters) but it is their "thinking". They don't see why they should be the first cohort to see their SPA raised. They agree equalisation and higher SPA should apply for everyone else but to not themselves

billheywood.bsky.social•3 days ago

And be paid for by people who will have to work longer and retire with a fraction of the wealth their generation has (unequally distributed I acknowledge)

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

Absolutely. A look at the circumstances of the most vocal campaigners is revealing.

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

Which is why they have demanded compensation for all with no requirement for proof of detriment or straitened circumstances - because if they had to provide that they simply wouldn't get a bean. It's why they never wanted help for the poorest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QI7YG8jWaw

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/24296109.southend-waspi-woman-fighting-compensation-thousands/ Headteacher, allowed to be in charge of children, with final salary pension, so shockingly dim she claims not to have known her SPA and says it "would be nice" to get SP with her teacher's pension and wants us to pay for it. You couldn't make it up

geordielassie.bsky.social•3 days ago

That is not the WASPI argument. WASPI never disagreed with the equalisation of pension ages. WASPI’s complaint is against the maladministration (confirmed by the ombudsman) by the DWP.
The current government seems determined to compound the injustice.

barbararich.bsky.social•3 days ago

WASPI likes to trot out the line about never disagreeing with the equalisation of state pension ages. That hides the fact that it has consistently encouraged its supporters to seek full restitution in all but name for their cohort alone, not caring a jot for younger women (or men) with higher SPAs

geordielassie.bsky.social•3 days ago

There were other groups seeking full restitution. That was not WASPIs call. It is true that expectations have been lowered while waiting for the full report of the ombudsman.
It was 1950s women who suffered the injustice of insufficient notice of the change in pension age.

barbararich.bsky.social•3 days ago

WASPI did not label their demands “full restitution”. But if you analyse them (and I have done) as they have been formulated over time, it is clear that they have been demands for full restitution in all but name, only moderated since last March when the PHSO’s final report was published

barbararich.bsky.social•3 days ago

And it’s a nonsense to describe 15 years’ notice (from 1995 to 2010) of increases to state pension age as inadequate

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

A demand to be put back into the position they would have been in if their birthday was in 1950 amounts to "full restitution" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rABP-_LRxho

billheywood.bsky.social•3 days ago

I understand the argument but it boils down to the same thing - who wants money and who would have to pay it

geordielassie.bsky.social•3 days ago

Perhaps they think it’s easier to write off older women than post office employees and other deserving cases.

billheywood.bsky.social•3 days ago

I don't think anything about it is easy

It is extremely complicated and potentially extremely expensive

barbararich.bsky.social•3 days ago

WASPI as an entire cohort (and I am one) are not deserving cases. Compensation for maladministration as found by the PHSO would be a pure windfall for the many who were perfectly well aware of the increases in their SPA, and would not satisfy the most vociferous campaigners, or meet genuine hardship

cashquestions.bsky.social•3 days ago

The maladministration took place over 28 months (a delay to sending letters DWP had decided to send and the Ombudsman found there had been no financial loss deriving from it. We are ultimately talking about compensation for hurt feelings.

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

I don’t think “maladministration” is necessarily on a scale between “all fine” and “unlawful”. It is often a different thing. No matter how extreme the government failure to notify, the courts held that there was no duty to notify at all (Delve (CA) at [120]).

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

Moreover, it isn’t clear why the government can be reviewed for “rejecting” a PHSO report. They are not exercising any power in doing so: the legislation doesn’t provide for the report to bind the gov unless they reject it: indeed it expressly contemplates they may do nothing…

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

Hi Matthew

Have you read the letter before claim I am linking to in the post?

That ministerial decisions can be JRd seems a straightforward, non-controversial proposition.

You may not like that, but that is not the same as it not being clear?

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

I have seen the letter. That they can be is clear on the basis of Bradley and EMAG. But if you read those cases, as I have, they are thin on the ground in explaining *why* one can JR such ministerial decisions.

The reasoning is what I am suggesting is not clear.

davidallengreen.bsky.social•3 days ago

I have too, and I was not expecting this to be a controversial point!

A decision was made by a minister, based on (purported) reasons and evidence.

The decision was even set out in a lengthy official document to which I link.

I am sorry to differ, but it seems clear to me this can be JRd.

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

There are cases which suggest a court can review anything a public body does, whether or not they involve the exercise of a statutory power, or even any power.

Essentially that derives from GCHQ and Gillick. Regardless of their merits, those cases are 20 years after the 1967 Act.

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

I say "such ministerial decisions", because they are not ministerial decisions which involve any exercise of any legal power (never mind a public power). Plainly where a statute confers a power, Parliament is taken to intend legal control of that power by the usual JR methods.

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

Moreover, the "cogent reasons" criterion which is used in these cases appears to simply be a court invention. The statute doesn't say anything close to it, and no other form of JR I am aware of uses it.

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•3 days ago

And for a political remedy, as you note.

Those arguments may have to wait for the Supreme Court given the rulings in Bradley and EMAG, but I hope the government makes them.

fiftyfloor.bsky.social•3 days ago

Do find this story fascinating, in that I find I agree 100% with the government on what is the right thing to do.

But also 100% with your argument (if I understand it) that it makes a complete mockery of the ombudsman system.

Fun!

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