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Order! Order.

Hello, I'm Sean Curran, and this is today in Parliament from BBC Radio 4 for Thursday the 29th of January,

when there was cross-party anger after ministers said they wouldn't pay compensation to women affected by changes to

the state pension age. This is simply gaslighting by this Labour government. The Justice Minister

hails progress tackling prison overcrowding, but issues are warning. Our prisons are still under

severe strain.

The risks we inherited from our predecessors have not vanished overnight.

And MPs mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

As we lose the last survivors, the eyewitnesses of the Holocaust,

how will we keep our oft-repeated promise to them that we will never forget?

But first, the government has again decided not to pay compensation

to women born in the 1950s who were affected by an increase in the state pension age.

Until 2010, men received their state pension at 65 and women at 60. But in 1995, the government agreed that between 2010 and 2020, the pension age for women would steadily increase from 60 to 65. In 2011, that process was accelerated. And in 2020, the pension age for both men and women increased to 66.

For years, campaigners from the group women against state pension inequality, or WASPI, have argued that more than three and a half million women were not properly informed about the planned changes.

Last November, ministers said they would revisit their decision not to pay compensation

after a report from 2007 came to light.

Announcing the result of that review, the Work and Pension Secretary Pat McFadden

said his department accepted

that individual letters about the changes could have been sent earlier. For this, I want to

repeat the apology that my right honourable friend gave on behalf of the government, and I am sorry that

those letters were not sent sooner. But he said it was unlikely that earlier letters would have made a difference.

...