Pension age rise 'should be carefully considered'

By Tom Farley, Fri 23 Jul 2010 - Published in Pensions

Moving forward plans to raise the pension age to 68 may not be a good idea, one expert has argued.

In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith revealed that the coalition government is considering speeding up the timetable for increasing the state pension age.

Robin Ellison, head of strategic development for pensions at Pinsent Masons, admitted that the current system is unsustainable but suggested that any reforms will need to be well thought out.

"What [Mr Duncan Smith] should be looking at is what the government thinks is the right number of years that the average UK citizen should spend in retirement, which is what the Swedes do," he commented.

The expert recommended that the government links the state pension age to the average person's life expectancy, as this would give them a greater chance of having a set number of years in retirement.

Mr Ellison also said that the government should look at ways to introduce flexible retirement, so people can start to gradually reduce the number of hours they work as they get older.

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