Waspi chairman Angela Madden says she is quietly confident that Prime Minister Andy Burnham will honour a pledge to compensate 3.5million women born in the 1950s who received inadequate notice of increases to their state pension age. The issue matters because these women, some of whom relied heavily on the state pension in retirement, were left with little time to plan financially after the changes, and the long-running campaign has become a test of whether Burnham will follow through where the previous Labour government did not.

Madden, 72, believes Burnham is in "listening mode" despite him appearing to row back in June by suggesting compensation could take the form of concessionary travel. Waspi is seeking the maximum payout recommended by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in 2024, worth more than £10billion in total, or roughly £2,950 per person, after a six-year probe found the Department for Work and Pensions guilty of "maladministration" in communicating the changes brought in by the 1995 and 2011 Pensions Acts. The previous government under Sir Keir Starmer rejected the ombudsman's recommendations in late 2024, prompting Madden and fellow campaigner Janet Fulster to write to Burnham urging "fair and proportionate" redress.