Well it's fair to say that the WASPI blog post had a bigger impact than I expected. However in the last couple of days there have been a few developments that are worth pointing out. Firstly was Theresa May at Prime Minister's Questions this week. Ian Blackford decided to go on WASPI for the final PMQs of the session. Watch it very carefully and you can see Damian Green MP feeding May the same line he used in Question Time. When the Prime Ministers put the position back to the SNP:
"The Scottish Government now does have extra powers in the area of welfare, and perhaps it's about time the Scottish Government got on with the day job"
The pantomime reaction from the SNP is there for you to see, lots of exaggerated shaking of heads in a deliberate attempt to claim the SNP cant use their powers.
We've already established that there is nothing stopping the SNP from increasing pensions for women affected by WASPI, so at the very least they can compensate these women and they openly admit this. I've also shown why they also have the power to provide benefits to WASPI women before state pension age as they could not be defined as a pension.
We've also now got an SNP official page on WASPI on their website, and again the wording they use is extremely telling:
"In government, we will always use the powers at our disposal to protect the poorest in our society and mitigate the worst excess of the Tory government. However, with the limited social security powers devolved to Scotland, the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to create new pension benefits. The SNP will continue to fight for the UK Government to take responsibility, deliver the pension that women born in the 1950s deserve and end this inequality at source."
Firstly social security powers are anything but limited. The SNP can raise any benefit they like and have the power to introduce new benefits whenever they like, expect a new pension after state pension age. That's why the SNP's handwringing above is very tightly worded, yes the SNP can't create new pension benefits, but that doesn't preclude them creating new benefits to support WASPI women.
The SNP know this, they aren't saying there isn't anything they can do only the one thing in social security that they explicitly cannot do but is not required to support WASPI women.
But there is a far more fundamental point here.
I actually believe that the SNP were initially sincere in their belief that they were precluded from supporting WASPI women, however a close reading of the legislation (which we know from the FOIs) shows that this is not the case. But the point is even if the SNP had doubts things have changed. We've had the UK Pensions Minister, the First Secretary of State and, now, the Prime Minister, all in the context of WASPI, saying the SNP have the power to sort this.
If these powers mattered to the SNP, if they really had doubts that they couldn't support WASPI women, given the statements by the UK government why exactly are they sitting on the green benches of the commons shaking their heads. They should be leaping off the benches and celebrating, thanking the UK government for confirming the extent of their welfare powers.
But they aren't, they're sitting collectively shaking their heads, rolling their eyes and shouting "rubbish".
Why? It's simple they just dont want the power or the responsibility. This isn't a nationalist party this is just a team of chancers more interested in game playing than governing.
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