Pensioners deserve a lot better

Mar 28 2009 by Nicholas Craig, partner at Watson Burton law firm

RETIRMENT has been cancelled. Pensions have been slashed with little hope of recovery within the next few years.

It’s devastating many people’s futures, particularly those who have saved part of their hard-earned money over the years to ensure a comfortable retirement only to see it vaporise in the recession.

I’m surprised that pensioner power hasn’t taken to the streets in some force to make its voice heard. So far the systematic starvation of our pensions and the recession-induced ravages which mean that many thousands will have to work until we drop has been received without retort by those most deeply affected.

With retirement plans wrecked, job opportunities drying up and property prices plummeting the outlook for people nearing 60 is about as bleak as it can get.

Yet you rarely see or hear pensioners or potential retirees airing their case on television or in the press. The one section of society who could suffer from the effects of the recession for the rest of their lives is far too quiet for its own good.

Ironically the Work and Pensions Select Committee has launched an inquiry into ‘Tackling Pensioner Poverty in Great Britain’ this month. It is well overdue.

It could tackle the state pension to begin with, to give pensioners a weekly sum that they could live on without the need for means testing. It could also look at generous reductions on council tax, heating costs and home maintenance.

More than two million people are planning to delay their retirement this year because of their lacerated pensions, according to new research by the Prudential. Over half a million of these said they would not be able to retire before 2012 and another half million had given up on the idea of retirement altogether.

It’s a deeply worrying situation.

The ‘mature entrepreneurs’ who will carry on working well past their three score years and ten may be luckier than those employees forced to stop working on their 65th birthday.

Age Concern had hoped that the European Court of Justice would overturn the law on the grounds of ageism this month. It didn’t, but it has left the door slightly ajar. The decision was left to the High Court, and British judges will reconsider the case later this year.

Let’s hope that out of all this depressing mess, some future can be created for pensioners who have been savagely stripped of lifetimes’ savings and dreams of contented retirements.