Comprehensive Spending Review: state pension age to rise to 66 by 2020

Speaking this afternoon in his Comprehensive Spending Review, George Osborne said: "Never again will those who worked hard all their lives be insulted with a state pension increase of just 75p."

In order to fund increases in state pension, the chancellor said employees would have to work longer and it is estimated the change will save £5 billion until the end of the next parliament.

Commenting on the announcement, Catherine Richmond a partner at law firm Nabarro, said: "We're an ageing population and so the Government is doing all it can to encourage us all to work for longer and pay our taxes for longer. Raising the state pension age in 2020 far more quickly than planned shows how urgent the Government thinks the economic case has become.  

"However, people who have not made their own pension arrangements will fall through the gap and may be left with no source of state pension support if employers persist in trying to force employees to retire from their jobs earlier than age 66. For many people it is more likely to become financially imperative that they keep on working throughout their sixties and so there will be more and more weight behind the campaign to scrap forced retirement in all but the most narrow of circumstances."

This article was first published on hrmagazine.co.uk