Liz Truss urged to rule out plans to bring forward pension age hike

In some of the country’s poorest areas, it could mean as little as four years. 

Currently, both men and women can claim their pension when they reach 66. It is due to rise to 67 for those born on or after April 1960, before jumping to 68 between 2044 and 2046 for those born on or after April 1977. 

However, a review in 2017 recommended looking at bringing that last change forward to 2037-39.

According to a report in today’s Sun, in a bid to save up to £6bn a year, Liz Truss’s government is minded to do just that, with some suggestion it could come in from 2035.

Yesterday the Prime Minister refused to rule out the change. She told Sky News: “You’re asking me to speculate about all kinds of decisions that haven’t yet been made.

“What’s first of all important is that we dealt with the energy prices people were facing. We’ve helped to curb inflation through that intervention.

“We’ve reduced taxes to get the economy growing.

“We’re going to be doing economic reforms in areas like moving faster with building projects, moving faster with transport projects to get the economy going.

“And that is what we need to do because we are facing a very difficult international situation, a slowing global economy.

“So yes, I will do what it takes to fix those issues.”

A report by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) last month revealed that life expectancy in Scotland had fallen for the second year in a row, down to 76.6 years for men and 80.8 years for women.

However, those figures mask a significant gulf in the life expectancy for those living in deprived areas compared to those in more affluent communities is growing.

Life expectancy was highest in Orkney – where girls born between 2019 and 2021 can expect to live 83.8 years and boys born in the same period can expect to live to the age of 80.4.

However, in Glasgow City, the council area with the lowest life expectancy, this was 78 years for females and 72.9 years for males.

Male life expectancy in the most deprived parts of Scotland was 13.7 years lower than it is in the least deprived areas for 2019 to 2021.

Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, said: “Raising the state pension age improves the Government’s finances in the longer term, but there’s no objective justification for it at the moment as life expectancy has clearly stalled.

“Age UK cannot support such a move, especially as we know that the people who will lose out the most are those unable to work up to their state pension age due to ill health and caring responsibilities, as well as anyone with few or outdated qualifications who becomes unemployed in mid-life.

“As things stand, and against the context of endemic ageism in the labour market, any decision by the Government to make today’s 50-somethings wait longer for their state pension would be setting up hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and women for a miserable and impoverished period in their run-up to retirement – a regressive and deeply regrettable step.”

SNP Shadow Work and Pensions spokesperson Kirsty Blackman called on the Prime Minister to “ditch her plans to raise the state pension age, which are a serious threat to Scottish pensions and yet another Tory attack on the poorest in society.”

She added: “A decade of Tory cuts and Brexit damage has seen wages stagnate, mortgage rates rise, the cost of living soar – and now the Tories want to take people’s hard-earned pensions away. It’s shameful.

“Under the Tories, pensioner poverty is rising, the UK suffers from the worst inequality in north west Europe, and research shows Tory cuts have likely caused more deaths than covid-19.

“The Scottish Government is doing what it can to mitigate Tory cuts and direct support to those on low and middle incomes – but Scotland shouldn’t be left cleaning up Westminster’s mess.”