The state pension has already been hiked to 66 for both men and women. It will rise to 67 between April 2026 and March 2028.
And it won’t stop there.
The retirement age is currently scheduled to hit 68 from 2044 but it could be sooner. In 2017 the Cridland review proposed bringing that forward to 2037.
Others have suggested 2035. The Tory government seemed keen but the decision now lies with PM Keir Starmer. He must make it by July 2026.
As yet we don’t know Labour’s thinking. But yesterday Starmer was shown a way of pushing the state pension age ever higher. We should be worried.
In February, the International Longevity Centre said the retirement age must rise to 70 or even 71, to keep it affordable.
The left-wing Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has previously gone further by calling for the retirement age to hit 70 by 2028 and then an unbelievable 75 by 2035.
It thinks we spend too much on pensioners, and not enough on younger people.
The Treasury would also love to axe the triple lock, which lifts the state pension every year in line with prices, earnings or 2.5%, whichever is highest.
The view in Westminster’s is that we can’t have both. If the triple lock survives, the state pension age must go up.
As yet, there’s no official timetable for increasing the state pension to 69 or 70, but once Starmer has decided when to hike it to 68, that will be next.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged an “iron fist” towards government spending, and the state pension age makes a tempting punch bag.
It’s either that or the triple lock. One has to go.
After Reeves slashed the Winter Fuel Payment, few pensioners will voting for Labour at the next election. So politically, the party has little to lose.
Yet there’s a problem with hiking the retirement age again and again. First, only half of us are well enough to continue working at 70.
Second, it’s harsh on the lowest paid. Many start work at 16 and have made decades of national insurance contributions, yet will have to wait even longer for their pension.
They’re also likelier to fall ill in their 50s or early 60s. Some will die without getting a penny. By pushing the retirement age higher, the state is robbing them blind.
Yesterday, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and pension provider abrdn said hiking the state pension age to 67 will save Reeves £6billion a year.
The IFS and abrdn suggested Reeves could ease the burden on those who cannot continue work on by giving them extra Universal Credit in the year before retirement. This would cost £600m, a tenth of that £6billion saving.
It’s a clever proposal but risky. It could give Starmer and Reeves the cover they need to drive the state pension age towards 70 sooner than any of us expected. And save an awful lot of money.
The onslaught on the state pension worries me for another reason.
Basically, politicians are stripping people of pension rights they’ve worked hard for, by making decades of national insurance contributinos.
At the same time, they’re handing out ever more benefits to millions of jobless people of working age who aren’t contributing anything at all. How fair is that?
