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Unions representing millions of UK workers have called on the Labour leadership to commit to scrapping state pension age rises, saying they could push retirement out of reach for today’s young.
The call came from leading figures in the union movement who met in London this week to discuss pension policies under a future Labour government.
The state pension was a key concern for officials attending the Trades Union Congress (TUC) meeting. Delegates called for planned increases in the state pension age to be scrapped.
Under the current timetable, the state pension age will rise to 67 from 2026 with a further increase scheduled in 2046, in spite of evidence of rising poverty rates among older citizens and falling life expectancy in many parts of the country.
“An incoming government must address the impact of a rising state pension age,” said Kate Bell, assistant general secretary to the TUC, the umbrella body for unions.
“The fact that improvements in life expectancy are stalling and that the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest is growing is shocking.”
Although the full state pension — currently £203.85 a week — is an important source of income across the income distribution, it is much more important for poorer households.
Recent research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that among households with someone aged 66–70, where no one is in paid work, the state pension made up 71 per cent of income for the poorest fifth and 23 per cent for the richest.
The Conservatives last year committed to push ahead with the rise in pension age to 67, but pledged a further review within two years of the next parliament to reconsider the rise to age 68, set for 2046.
Speaking at the TUC conference, union leaders said successive pension age rises would push retirement out of reach for the younger generation.
“Kids [of today] are probably never ever going to see a state pension,” Caren Evans, national officer at Unite, told the TUC conference.
“There’s already talk that one day the state pension age could be close to 70 or 71. We are fighting against [future pension age rises] because this is simply not good enough.”
Liz Kendall, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, told delegates she was “acutely aware” that years of healthy life expectancy in places like her constituency of Leicester were just “far fewer than in other, better-off parts of the country”.
She said a priority for her party would be to ensure that people live longer, healthier lives. “We know that as we live for longer, we need to work for longer,” she said, adding, “we’ve got no plans to lower the state pension age.”
In a recent report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies recommended the UK should maintain a single universal state pension age, rather than introduce an “early access” age in return for a reduced award, as is possible in some countries.
The report said government spending on the state pension, pension credit and winter fuel payment was expected to be £132bn in 2023-24, or 5.1 per cent of national income. That compares with 4.4 per cent of national income spent on these payments in 1983-84 and 4.2 per cent in 2003-04.