68 is too late

Over the past few years, the Scottish Pensioners’ forum has joined forces with Unite the Union and the National Pensioners convention in England and Wales to challenge and oppose any further increases to the state pension age.

After meeting with Baroness Neville-Rolfe in Edinburgh in 2022, where representatives of the SPF delivered a document highlighting both the concerns of their members and demonstrating notable research on why any further increases to the state pension age would have a detrimental impact on older people particularly as mortality rates were in fact in decline.

The SPF organised a demonstration in Edinburgh in May 2023 and joined with Unite and the NPC at Westminster to hand in a petition with tens of thousands of signatures demanding that the UK Government dropped any further plans to accelerate the state pension age further.

There are many reasons why there should be no further rises to the state pension age and these include:

• Many people in Scotland, and indeed across the UK, experience poorer physical health / earlier onset of ill-health as they age particularly for those undertaking manual and physical work which may make working longer even harder.
• Life expectancy (and “healthy life expectancy”) in Scotland is below the UK average, meaning that people may spend fewer years in retirement and raising the state pension age would reduce that further.
• Workers (especially in lower paid or physically demanding jobs) could face having to work longer to receive the state pension — potentially increasing inequality and hardship.
• SPF campaigners argue that workers have already paid into the system and deserve to retire at a reasonable age instead of ‘working until they drop’.

In March 2023, the UK government announced that it would not be bringing forward the rise to 68 but really all they were doing was kicking any decision into the long grass to be picked up after the next General Election. And that is exactly what has happened!

The third state pension age review consultation closed on October 24th and after our submission (which can be found under our consultation responses) we have been invited to meet with Dr Suzy Morrisey, who is conducting the review, to address our concerns.

The ’68 is Too Late’ campaign is still going strong and we will continue to work with other organisations, and stand firm in our resolve, that there can be no further increases to the state pension age and to help safeguard the state pension for future generations to come.