Former Pensions Minister Baroness Ros Altmann has called for help for the WASPI pension campaigners despite Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer this week ruling out additional compensation.

The WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaigners say that they were not adequately warned about the impact of increasing their State Pension from 60 to 65 and then 66.

Baroness Altmann said that the government had a duty to help the women and believes a ‘hardship’ fund should be set up but she has accepted that widespread compensation in full for the women is not right.

She said the Government had “disappointed” millions of women in their mid-sixties and early seventies by ruling out back-dating of pensions to age 60 for the women who had missed out.

She pointed out that the government had rejected a Parliamentary Ombudsman ruling which found maladministration over some of the communication of the changes.

The Government says that while there were some shortcomings in the communications process the majority of women affected were aware of the increase to the State Pension age.

The WASPI women argue they were discriminated against and unfairly treated. Many have said they have faced misery in retirement as expected State Pensions failed to materialise.

Baroness Altmann said: “I never favoured compensating every WASPI woman, but I believe a hardship fund or early Pension Credit access would have been right.

“I do believe this issue was handled dreadfully by DWP in the years between 2004 and 2009. When I was Pensions Minister, I tried to persuade fellow Ministers in 2015-2016 to recognise that there had been maladministration and establish some kind of hardship scheme that women worst affected could claim from. 

“I also suggested perhaps using early access to Pension Credit as a possible way forward for means-tested help. But there was no support for this. I never supported paying money to everyone affected. I am a WASPI woman and would not want taxpayers to compensate me personally because I knew about it.  However, I do believe there is a strong moral case for the worst affected women, who have suffered serious hardship, to claim on a case-by-case basis. Sadly this, too, has been rejected by the Government.”

Baroness Altmann said it was now “hard to see any way forward for WASPI now” and it was up to MPs to carry on campaigning.