'Skeleton' pensioners to lobby Parliament » Central Government » 24dash.com

Around 1,000 pensioners will take part in a rally of Parliament today, calling for an increase in the basic state pension.

Members of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) will dress up as "skeletons" to visually emphasise the fact that an average 500,000 pensioners die every year.

Up to three million pensioners will die before any benefit from the restoration of the link between basic state pensions and average earnings kicks in, campaigners said.

Earlier this year the Government announced in a White Paper that it would restore the tie between pensions and earnings - abolished under the Conservative Party in 1980 - as part of widespread reform to the pensions system.

But the start date would be put off until at least 2012.

The NPC, which represents more than 1,000 pensioner groups across the country, is calling on MPs to reinstate the link with immediate effect.

Members want the Government to increase basic state pensions to £114 a week from the current figure of ?84.25 in a bid to address pensioner poverty.

Speakers at today's rally include MPs Kate Hoey and Kelvin Hopkins, who have signed an Early Day Motion in support of the NPC's demands. The EDM currently has 86 signatures.

Pensioners will also gather at the House of Commons to lobby their MPs and will deliver a petition with around 100,000 signatures to Downing Street.

Joe Harris, general secretary of the NPC, said: "The Government's White Paper on pensions contains nothing of immediate benefit to today's pensioners.

"Already one in five older people live below the poverty line and millions more are being forced into hardship by rising fuel and council tax bills.

"Yet the Government has been breathtakingly complacent on the issue, by refusing to substantially increase the basic state pension and delaying the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings until at least 2012."

He added: "Britain has the fourth strongest economy in the world and the balance in the National Insurance Fund is now so large that it would pay for every pensioner to have a pension of at least £114 a week for a number of years.

"The question therefore is not whether the county can afford to provide a decent state pension for everyone, but whether MPs have the political will to do the decent thing."

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Tackling pensioner poverty has been our first priority. Since 1997, initiatives such as Pension Credit have helped to lift more than two million pensioners out of absolute poverty and a million people out of relative poverty.

"Today, no pensioner should be living on less than £114 per week, compared to £69 per week 10 years ago.

"On average pensioner households are £1,400 a year - £26 a week - better off in 2006/07, because of tax and benefit changes, than under the 1997 system. A pensioner is now less likely to be on a low income than people of working age."

He added that the "bold reforms" proposed by the Government would give people more generous provision from the state and embed a new culture of retirement saving in the UK, while limiting the spread of means-testing.

Copyright Press Association 2006.