Stay in employment until you’re 70 – Lord Turner

Category: Pensions
Date: 7/3/2009

The author of the Government's Pensions Commission in 2005 has said that UK employees should continue working up until the age of 70.

Lord Turner's recommendations in the report four years ago mean that Britons are set to work well into their sixties before they can draw their state pension.

Men and women will see the age for a state pension rise to 66 in 2024, to 67 in 2034 and 68 in 2044.

However, Lord Turner has told the BBC that there were arguments in his proposals that the pension age should increase to 70 and that he would argue for a faster increase if he was to carry out the report again.

"If I was redoing my report I would be more radical," he said, "arguing for an even faster increase in the state pension age to make affordable an even bigger increase that we suggested."

Lord Turner also said that public sector workers should move away from final salary schemes to more flexible pensions. "We have to make it sustainable and fair," he commented.

He also rejected the claim that it would cause people to worry about when they would receive their pension, saying: "It is not taking people's retirement away from them.

"I think the idea that a 25 year old sits there worrying whether their retirement is at 65 or 67 is complete rubbish."