09 June 2006
The government will 'intensify' cross-departmental work to ensure that health and welfare improvements among social groups with life expectancies close to the future state pension age are prioritised, the new pensions minister said this week.
James Purnell, promoted to the pensions brief last month, told Public Finance that he viewed plans to raise life expectancy among working-class males in the north of England and Scotland, for example, as 'essential and complementary' elements of the government's broad pension reform proposals.
Pensions Secretary John Hutton last month published his plan to increase the basic state pension age to 68 by 2046, in line with average life expectancy, to pay for more generous pensions in future.
The proposals were outlined in Hutton's pensions white paper, but critics said the plan failed to account for social groups with life expectancies that are already close to the current state pension age of 65.
Speaking at a Trades Union Congress pensions conference on June 5, Purnell said his Stalybridge and Hyde constituents were among Britons with lower-than-average life expectancies.
'Ministers are conscious of the problem,' he later told PF. 'It requires hard, co-ordinated work across government to raise awareness of health issues such as healthier diets.'
PFjun2006
