Pensioners lobby parliament for better deal
Up to 1,000 pensioners will descend on Westminster today to demand an immediate increase in the state pension.
The National Pensioners Convention (NPC) warns the government’s plans to raise the level of the state pension by restoring the link with earnings by 2012 will come too late for the 2.5 million pensioners currently living below the poverty line.
It says up to three million older people – 500,000 a year – will die before the changes come into effect. It wants pensions to be increased immediately from £84.25 to £114 a week.
“The government’s white paper on pensions contains nothing of immediate benefit to today’s pensioners,” said NPC general secretary Joe Harris.
“Already one in five older people live below the poverty line and millions more are being forced into hardship by rising fuel and council tax bills.”
He accused the government of being “breathtakingly complacent” on the issue by refusing to restore the earnings-pension link before 2012, adding: “Pensioners cannot afford to wait any longer – we need a decent state pension now.”
Mr Harris is calling for the balance in the National Insurance fund – more than £34 billion – to be used to pay for an immediate increase in the state pension.
“The question therefore is not whether the country can afford to provide a decent state pension for everyone, but whether MPs have the political will to do the decent thing. It’s our job to convince them they must,” he said.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) insisted tackling pensioner poverty had been the government’s “first priority”, saying measures such as pension credit had helped lift more than two million pensioners out of absolute poverty.
“Today, no pensioner should be living on less than £114 per week, compared to £69 per week ten years ago,” he continued.
“On average, pensioner households are £1,400 a year – £26 a week – better off in 2006-07, because of tax and benefit changes, than under the 1997 system. A pensioner is now less likely to be on a low income than people of working age.”
However, shadow work and pensions minister Anne McIntosh, who is backing today’s rally, said: “There has been a great deal of focus on the government’s proposed pension reform bill but the reality is that these changes will not come in until 2012 at the earliest.
“Therefore, over three million of today’s pensioners will never benefit from these reforms. Meanwhile, council tax has risen by 84 per cent on average in Britain, with electricity and gas bills up by 28.2 per cent in 2005.”
