UK strategy is needed to tackle OAP poverty – committee

A NATIONAL strategy to tackle pensioner poverty is needed, according to MPs.

- VICKY SHAW

The UK Government should also decide on - and ensure - a minimum level of retirement income, the Work and Pensions Committee urged.

Once set, a plan should be created for everyone to reach that level, it added.

Given that the state pension is the core of the government's offer to pensioners, a guiding principle should be that it provides the amount needed for a “minimum, dignified, socially acceptable standard of living’; the committee said.

It urged the government to commit to a UK-wide, cross-government strategy for an ageing society, that it said would help target support to tackle pensioner poverty.

If it does not effectively tackle poverty as one of the causes of ill-health, “the government will not be able to achieve its goal of building a health and social care service that is sustainable; the Pensioner Poverty report warned.

‘The report also highlighted longer-term trends that “threaten to undermine pension adequacy” such as people renting into later life.

‘The report said: “After a decline in pensioner poverty in the 2000s, the number of pensioners in relative low income started to rise again from 2010. This has been exacerbated by increases in the cost of living since 2021.”

It continued: “The number of people of pension age living in relative poverty (below 60% of median income) is 1.9 million or 16% of pensioners.