DWP rejects calls to increase State Pension to £380 each week and reduce retirement age to 60

dailyrecord.co.uk:

New proposals calling for a minimum weekly State Pension payment of £380 for all men and women over the age of 60 has been rejected by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

An online petition, created by Michael Thompson, received more than 1110,000 signatures of support from people across the UK and was debated by MPs in Parliament last week.

The petition also called on the UK Government to lower the State Pension age from 66 to 60. It argued that current payments are “far too low” but suggested that by increasing the Basic State Pension weekly rate from £141.85 to £380 - equivalent to £19,760 per year - to everyone aged 60 or over, this “should lift thousands out of poverty” while giving older people “more spending power and help grow the economy”.Pensions Minister, Laura Trott listened to contributions from MPs including David Linden (SNP), Marsha De Cordova (Labour), Beth Winter (Labour) and Matt Rodda (Labour), before saying that the UK Government “disagrees with the petition’s proposed approach” and setting out the reasons why.

Ms Trott addressed both proposed points in the petition separately, providing clarity and evidence on why they could not be realistic considerations without impacting on the larger UK population, especially taxpayers.The proposed payment of £380 per week would see State Pension on par with the National Living Wage, something that Ms Trott explained was not practical as the two are “very different provisions, with distinct purposes”.She said: “The National Living Wage aims to protect low-income workers and to provide an incentive to work, by ensuring that workers benefit from being employed.