UK strategy is needed on elderly poverty

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

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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.