THE retirement age would have to rise above average life expectancy in 162 Scottish neighbourhoods if state pensions increases are to be maintained at current levels, MPs have warned.
Maintaining the so-called “triple lock” would see the pensionable age rise to 70.5 by 2060 and it needs to be “retired”, the Commons Work and Pensions Committee said. It notes that is higher than people on average are expected to die in a number of areas north of the Border.
Glasgow alone has 62 neighbourhoods where male life expectancy is below 70.5, with the lowest – the Parkhead West and Barrowfield area – down to just 62.5.
Committe chairman Frank Field MP reiterated its call for the “triple lock” – which guarantees the state pension rises by average earnings, the consumer price index, or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the highest – to be scrapped, saying it had “done its job”.
The committee said research it had commissioned from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that if ministers were to index pensions to a “smoothed” earnings link – protecting the value of the pension when inflation outstripped earnings – it would save 0.8 per cent of GDP a year.
Mr Field said: “With the triple lock, the only way state pension expenditure can be made sustainable is to keep raising the state pension age. This has the effect of excluding ever more people from the state pension. Such people will disproportionately be from more deprived areas and manual occupations.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel