Campaigners for the 125,000 victims of lost workplace pensions were claiming final victory in their David and Goliath action against the government yesterday as the Court of Appeal backed their case.
It was the latest damning judgment on the refusal by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to accept a parliamentary ombudsman's report which two years ago found it guilty of maladministration and injustice.
Although the Court of Appeal refused the DWP leave to appeal to the House of Lords, it appeared last night that the government would ignore even that ruling and petition the Lords directly.
The ombudsman had found that government assurances over the security of pensions saving at work were "inaccurate and misleading". The High Court, giving judicial review following a petition brought by four pensioners, had already ruled that the secretary of state had acted "irrationally" in defying the judgment.
Sir John Chadwick, giving his ruling at the Court of Appeal, said the maladministration had directly caused "a sense of outrage, distress, anxiety and uncertainty the loss of opportunities to make informed choices or to take remedial action".
Lord Justice Wall said: "Nobody reading the papers in this case could have anything but the utmost sympathy for the plight of the complainants, all of whom, it seemed to me, were decent, hardworking people who, through no fault of their own, had been - or were at serious risk of being - deprived of that for which they had worked throughout their lives, namely a modestly comfortable retirement."
Dr Ros Altmann, adviser to the Pensions Action Group which backed the case, said she was "astonished" that the government was prepared to spend more of taxpayers' money petitioning the House of Lords.
John Halford, the solicitor representing the pensions campaigners, said of the ruling: "The Court of Appeal is the latest independent body to conclude that the pensions ministers have been wilfully blind to the failings of the department and the multiple injustices that thousands of working people have suffered as a direct result.
"Though recent improvements to the Financial Assistance Scheme will be of some help to them, justice still demands acceptance of responsibility, an apology and redress of the outrage and distress caused."
Ministers have claimed that the cost of meeting the ombudsman's recommendations for compensation would be £15bn, but the actual cost translates into a maximum £3.7bn over 60 years, or £100m a year in real terms.
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