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UK Pension: Government will have to raise retirement age after election

Ministers will have to “grasp the nettle” on bringing forward the rise in the state pension age to 68 in the first couple of years of the next parliament, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has suggested.

After delaying the decision because of stalling life expectancy, Stride said it would still have to be taken, but it would probably be one for his successor in the job and that people would still get ten years of notice.

He also said there were “no plans” to change the triple lock on raising pensions in the next Conservative manifesto but stopped short of guaranteeing it would be retained.

Stride made the remarks as he addressed journalists at lunch in Westminster when he was asked whether the government will attempt to revisit its plans to raise the pension age in future in light of riots and protests in France.

The work and pensions secretary, a close ally of Rishi Sunak, said: “I don’t think it’s in our national psyche to start rioting and burning things over the state pension. Ultimately I took the decision [to delay] because of Covid and economic uncertainties and the fact that the important thing is you give people ten years’ notice of any change.”

The range of dates for moving up the state pension age from 67 to 68 is well into the 2030s: you’re debating 2030s, 40s or thereabouts. There’s no reason we need to take the decision now; you can wait until the first couple of years of the next parliament, take that decision and still give people ten years’ notice.”

However, he said the decision still did need to be taken.

“There is a real tension because if you look at the OBR’s fiscal sustainability reports projecting 50 years … the demographic changes and the costs of pensions are weighing in the wrong direction. So there is a point in time at which the nettle will have to be grasped, but it doesn’t need to be grasped until somebody other than me is in the [job],” Stride said, suggesting he does not see himself being work and pensions secretary after the next election.

Asked about the triple lock on pensions, which guarantees that payments rise by the higher of inflation, earnings or 2.5%, Stride said there were “not any plans currently” to abandon it in the next Conservative election manifesto. “I think the triple lock is a decision for the PM and others, and there are no plans to change the triple lock,” he said.

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