“Maintaining a maximum state pension age for all of 66 at the same time as guaranteeing the continuance of the triple lock seems prohibitively expensive.
“It flies in the face of the Cridland report and all the other studies that investigate the impact of increasing longevity on state pension ages in recent times.
“An alternative arrangement whereby individuals were to be allowed to claim an “actuarially reduced” state pension from age 66 once pension ages rose to 67 and above in the future in accordance with the current timetable would seem a more practical proposition. This was not specifically recommended by Cridland, but could presumably be done on a more cost-neutral basis and is something I believe the Government should be seriously consider as an aid to those workers with very physical demanding jobs, or who are otherwise physically incapable of working on to those later state pension ages.
“As it stands, I am afraid the current Labour proposal is largely “pie in the sky” and on economic grounds alone, has little chance of ever being implemented.”
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