{"id":280115,"date":"2025-07-21T14:07:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/280115\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T14:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:07:12","slug":"britain-is-facing-a-tsunami-of-pensioner-poverty-says-kendall-pensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/280115\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain is facing a \u2018tsunami\u2019 of pensioner poverty, says Kendall | Pensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain risks a \u201ctsunami of pensioner poverty\u201d over the coming decades unless the system of saving for retirement is overhauled, according to Liz Kendall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the launch of a major independent commission<\/a> on the pensions system, the work and pensions secretary said growing numbers would struggle to make ends meet in old age.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless we act, tomorrow\u2019s pensioners will be poorer than today\u2019s, because people who are saving aren\u2019t saving enough for their retirement, and crucially, because almost half of the working age population isn\u2019t saving anything for their retirement at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The commission echoes the approach taken by Tony Blair\u2019s government to pensions reform in 2002, when an inquiry chaired by Adair Turner led to the system of auto-enrolment.<\/p>\n

The commission will be led by a member of Adair\u2019s team, Jeannie Drake, with former Barclays UK chair, Sir Ian Cheshire, and the economist Nick Pearce also on board<\/p>\n

It will consult the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress, with the aim of building a consensus, which Kendall said she hoped would win the support of opposition parties.<\/p>\n

The proposals could include lowering the age at which auto-enrolment into workplace pensions starts \u2013 currently 22 \u2013 and raising contribution rates, now set at 8%.<\/p>\n

It will also look at the idea of \u201csidecar savings\u201d, which are advocated by the Resolution Foundation thinktank whose former chair, Torsten Bell, is a pensions minister. This approach would allow a set amount of pension savings to be accessed as a rainy-day fund in emergencies.<\/p>\n

Kendall confirmed that she was also launching the regular statutory review of the state pensions age. It is set at 66 but is already expected to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028.<\/p>\n

Kendall made clear that the costly triple lock pensions guarantee will not be considered by the commission, which is set to report in 2027. \u201cThe triple lock is out of scope,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility has warned about the much higher than expected costs of the triple lock, which uprates the state pension in line with inflation or wages, or by 2.5%, whichever is higher.<\/p>\n

Questioned after her speech at a south London community centre, Kendall acknowledged the role in pensioner poverty of high housing costs after retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy big worry is, so many young people have not even got a hope in hell of getting on the housing ladder, they\u2019re being absolutely killed by their rent, and if you are paying off your mortgage in retirement, or still renting in retirement, that is what is driving this sort of tsunami of pensioner poverty that is coming our way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The commission will not be asked to look at housing policy but Kendall pointed to other Labour policies in this area, including boosting housebuilding.<\/p>\n

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Bell, who attended the event, was asked about the prospects for reform of pensions tax relief, with higher rate taxpayers receiving it at 40%.<\/p>\n

Cutting this to the basic rate, or reducing the size of the lump sum pensioners can withdraw from their savings pot tax free, have been mooted as money-saving measures in the run-up to the autumn budget.<\/p>\n

Bell said: \u201cTax changes are not in scope for this review. But the tax system obviously is important, and we have a system of pension tax relief costing around \u00a370bn a year that does provide strong incentives for saving and that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Business groups gave the launch of the commission a cautious welcome but warned about the risks of piling more costs on employers by raising their contribution rate.<\/p>\n

Kate Nicholls, who chairs UK Hospitality and attended the launch, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve already seen the unintended consequences increasing business costs, like employer national insurance contributions, has had on the employment market, costing jobs. It\u2019s therefore crucial the commission embarks on a partnership approach with business and consumer groups to reach the right balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendall also alluded in her speech to Labour\u2019s U-turn on cuts to disability benefits, insisting the government would continue to advocate change.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cReforming the welfare state is never easy, and always contested. Let\u2019s be honest, the last few weeks have made that pretty clear \u2013 while the path of reform is inevitably bumpy, it cannot be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain risks a \u201ctsunami of pensioner poverty\u201d over the coming decades unless the system of saving for retirement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-280115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114891616594672063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}