POLITICS: MPs announcing their retirements can plan ahead unlike the WASPI women
Westminster returned last week after the Easter recess. Another couple of MPs on the government side have announced they will not be standing for election again – adding to an already large number who have intimated their retirement plans ahead of polling day.
Most MPs announcing their retirements will have had some opportunity to plan ahead and make informed choices about their future - unlike the WASPI women who weren’t told about changes in the State Pension Age. How ironic then that last week, the second reading of my colleague Alan Brown MP’s Private Member’s Bill on providing compensation for the WASPI women was kicked further down the road due to the archaic processes of the House of Commons. Alan has been a staunch campaigner on the WASPI issue and was successful in the ballot to bring forward a Bill in Parliament. He chose to table a Bill on compensating the WASPI women. However, this being Westminster, instead of his Bill being considered in an organised and measured manner, it has to compete with other Bills for time on a Friday when Parliament is in session.
Bills which don’t find favour with the government often find themselves being defeated, not by votes but literally by hot air. Government MPs who disagree with a Bill will talk about the Bill and carry on talking until time runs out. The allotted time for debate ran out before the WASPI Bill could be reached, thanks mainly to several longer-than-necessary speeches earlier in the day from serial filibusterers, and the date has been re-scheduled for May 17.
Of course, I hope that Alan Brown’s Bill will become entirely unnecessary and the UK Government will step-up to the mark and take responsibility for the failings of the Department for Work and Pensions by announcing a suitable compensation scheme. If it doesn’t, then Alan’s Bill could yet prove a useful fallback. It’s an incredible position to be in, but that’s the reality of the procedural decrepitude of the House of Commons.
Meanwhile, the Post Office Horizon Public Inquiry rolls on. Campaigner Alan Bates was interviewed earlier this month. Evidence continues to come to the surface showing that the senior management of the Post Office at that time must have known of the bugs in the Horizon system and that as a result of their actions and decisions, innocent people had been hounded and prosecuted. A day of reckoning is fast approaching for those who sought to cover-up, obfuscate and lie to Parliament about what they knew and when they knew it. Important as it is to get to the truth – for that is how closure will be achieved in this quite disgraceful chapter – the victims and their families need to be front and centre in achieving a ‘good’ outcome.
Discussions about compensation are still ongoing and it seems clear that Fujitsu will have to contribute towards that. Here, at least, there is agreement on the principle of compensation for the victims. The WASPI women, having won a great victory with the conclusions of the Parliamentary Ombudsman supporting their case, are still waiting for the UK Government (or indeed His Majesty’s Official Opposition, the Labour Party) to commit to paying out anything.
If Parliament cannot compel the current government to do the right thing then it’s important that there should be enough MPs in Westminster willing to continue to speak up and speak out on these matters.
