You'll have to work until you're 70, says PM's pension adviser

Millions more men and women will face working until 70, the Government's pensions guru has predicted on the eve of the state pension's centenary.

Two years ago, Lord Turner masterminded reforms which will see the retirement age rise to 68 by 2046 - to pay for the restoration of the link with earnings.

But on the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the state pension, he said growing life expectancy means this could be pushed higher.

'This is not the end of the story,' he stressed.

'If the value of the pension is to be protected, the retirement age will have to rise again.

'I would be amazed if around 2055, the Government of the day were not taking the retirement age higher and we'll be at 70 by the end of the century.'

Such a move would mean people working to the same age by 2100 as when the state pension was first introduced by David Lloyd George, then Liberal Party Chancellor, on August 1, 1908.

By 2024, workers will have to stay on until 66 to receive the full state pension, under Labour's reforms. This rises to 67 in 2034 and 68 by 2046.

But the peer - a former director general of the CBI - told The Times: 'There appears to be no upper limit on life expectancy so you are not taking retirement away from people by raising the age they stop work.

'People are still going to be having longer retirements despite the changes.'

But campaigners responded angrily to suggestions that the retirement age should keep rising, while respected former Downing Street pensions adviser Dr Ros Altmann said Lord Turner had missed the point.

'There's likely to be a different approach long before the end of the century,' she told the Mail yesterday THU, calling for a radical redesign of the concept of retirement.

'It could well be that people gradually cut down the amount they work later in life rather than suddenly stopping.

'Talking about a retirement age at 70 is meaningless if people are living to 100 or 110, which is entirely possible.

'People shouldn't be expected to soldier on full time until a particular age. There should be much more freedom and choice to when and how much you work.'

Neil Duncan-Jordan, of the National Pensioners Campaign said: 'After a period of working of 40 or 45 years, society should endow on people a period of retirement of not just two or three years.

'If the retirement age is raised to 70 for some groups of people, especially low-paid manual workers, life expectancy is not much beyond 70 or 75. Five years is not exactly the "lifetime in retirement" people have been promised.'

Mervyn Kohler, of Help the Aged, suggested that life expectancy may not rise.

'If some experts are correct, growing rates of obesity and other health problems could lead to declining life expectancy, so the pension age should actually come down in those circumstances,' he said.

The single person's basic state pension is £90.70 a week, one of the lowest in the developed world.

Just 35 per cent of women and 85 per cent of men actually receive the full amount due to the complex system of National Insurance contributions.

The annual bill for the basic state pension is £69billion and is expected to rise to £240billion by 2050 as people live longer.

Britain currently has a retired population of 12million.

Of those, a record 1.3million are getting jobs or staying in work because they cannot afford to retire, according to official figures.

In 1993, there were just 771,000 over state pension age who were employed.

Some 2.8million are living below the breadline as a result of meagre pensions and soaring living and mortgage costs, while around two million rely on their children for financial support.

The Department for Work and Pensions said there were no plans to increase the state pension age beyond 68.

Most public sector workers are still entitled to a generous final salary pension - at a cost to taxpayers of £21billion a year - and most can retire at 60.