State pension age could rise to 70 by 2060, WPC warns

The Commons Work and Pensions Committee (WPC) said that pension age would have to rise to 70.5 years-old by 2060 if the current rate of annual increases was to be sustained.

The news comes after Chancellor Phillip Hammond maintained that the government will keep the triple lock for the rest of the current parliament and will review its future after 2020.

However, the WPC has warned that the pensions ‘triple lock’ will mean pushing the state pension age above the current average male life expectancy in 162 neighbourhoods in Scotland and 26 areas in England.

Frank Field, committee chairman, explained: “With the triple lock in place 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 altogether. Such people will disproportionately be from more deprived areas and manual occupations, while those benefiting most will be the relatively prosperous.

“By 2020 the state pension will be at a level where it will provide a decent minimum income for people in retirement to underpin private saving, and any savings they have will be kept on top of, not clawed back from, the state pension.

“The triple lock will have done its job and it will be time therefore to retire it.”