Waspi women epitomise the excesses of single-issue activism
When historians come to look back on this period of British history, one of the things that will leap out is how, even as the state teetered towards fiscal apocalypse, there were more and more demands for greater spending on fewer justifiable causes.
Of all these, there can be few less sympathetic than the crusade by the Women Against State Pension Inequality, known as the Waspi campaign, for over ten billion pounds in compensation from the Government which was ultimately rejected.
As a legal challenge against that decision begins at the High Court on Monday, it might superficially appear that the campaigners have a solid case for compensation.
After all, didn't the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PSHO) recommend last March that the Government pay out billions to compensate women who were not adequately informed about changes to the state pension age?
Indeed such is the sense of grievance that over 9,000 women coughed up £150,000 for the cost of going to court to challenge the decision – and plenty of Labour MPs, attracted by an easy photo opportunity, made rash promises in opposition that they must now regret.
But this impression collapses once you actually look at the detail of what the PSHO has said.
The ombudsman did not say that all 3.5 million women in the relevant cohort, or even a particularly significant fraction of them, have been wronged by the state and deserve compensation.
Rather, that given the 'administrative burden' required to manually review all three and a half million cases and then calculate compensation on an individual basis, the Government should consider splitting the difference – giving a blanket compensation to everyone who could possibly have been affected.
That would mean spending up to £10.5 billion in paying thousands of pounds to possibly millions of people who do not deserve it, in order to get some compensation to those who would.
Even if Britain were a rich country, rolling in tax revenue and with big budget surpluses, that would be an extremely decadent way to spend taxpayers' money.
In our current circumstances, where ministers are contemplating large cuts, critical services are skinned to the bone and there is an emerging consensus on higher defence spending, it would be madness.
That's why Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, was right to reject the PSHO's recommendation: the ombudsman only considers a single problem, in the abstract and according to a narrow set of criteria; but it is up to the Government to take a holistic view.
If this thinking stopped with the Waspi women it would be a mercy. But goes much further.
Single-issue campaign groups are endemic to British politics. Disability campaigners defend the absurd explosion of Motability claims, whilst environmental bodies demand developers spend vast sums on bat tunnels with no regard to whether this represents value for money.
If such campaigns continue to be indulged, the public would understandably think we have much more cash to throw around that we really do – and the demands will just keep coming.
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