Steve Darling

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) and her stellar speech to launch the debate. This is the first debate I have spoken in that has been triggered by a petition. The fact is that the petition has been driven forward swiftly by the force of nature that is the WASPI women. One can only acknowledge what excellent campaigners they have been over many years. Their patience has been worn thin. As colleagues have alluded to, sadly a WASPI woman dies every 13 minutes. That means that during this three-hour debate some 14 WASPI women will have sadly died without receiving the compensation they so richly deserve. In my Torbay constituency, there are 6,930 WASPI women who deserve the support that the Government could give them. Across the United Kingdom there are 3.7 million WASPI women—that is over half a million people more than the population of Wales. An enormous amount of people could be benefiting from compensation that they so richly deserve. I was reflecting on the fact that many of us in the Chamber are new MPs. When I got elected—I am sure a number of Members have also reflected on this—the most important thing we needed to achieve was to rebuild trust between the public and politicians. We see elsewhere, in western Europe and North America, what happens when trust is broken and extremists take power, so we must rebuild trust. We saw what happened under the previous Government, when many of us stayed at home and did the right thing while others partied at No. 10. That broken trust needs to be rebuilt, and the issue before us today is potentially part of that rebuilding. Throughout the debate colleagues have highlighted many heartbreaking stories from around the United Kingdom, and the time has flown by. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) highlighted how the Secretary of State picked on an issue that held no water at all. I hope the Minister will return to that when he reflects on the debate. Pam in my constituency believed that she was set to retire at a certain age. She spent time supporting a husband who was dying from terminal cancer and a mother who was elderly and frail. She has been let down—as many women have throughout the United Kingdom. Let me now reflect on the ombudsman’s report. People are currently queuing up to say that the DWP is broken and not fit for purpose, and the report highlights that that is the case. Quangos seem to be somewhat out of fashion with the Government at the moment, so is the ombudsman one that the Government will consider abolishing? If they are choosing to ignore it this easily, what is the point of it? I hope that the Minister can provide some reassurances on that. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions stood up in the Chamber, accepted that there was maladministration and apologised, but said she will not give compensation. That is bizarre in the extreme. We need to build trust with our communities again. I am very much alive to the fact that, only this afternoon, WASPI women have lodged paperwork in the High Court for a judicial review on this very issue. That could take six months to come to fruition, or it could take 14 months, but why drag this out further? Let us not have the indignity of the Government being dragged kicking and screaming to the right decision. Do the right thing now, Minister.