“Ministers delay plan to lift UK state pension age to 68 as life expectancy falls”

Mar 22, 2023 | Pensions

The good news, the state pension age looks like it won’t rise again; or not for a while at least. The bad news, that’s because life expectancy in the UK has fallen. Far more people have died, and died younger in the past 10 years than in other countries. The trend started in 2010, so directly correlates with a decade of public spending and health cuts, and it’s the poorest who’ve suffered most: ‘If you travel just six miles from the poshest part of Kensington in London to New Cross Gate, life expectancy for men falls by a staggering 18 years, from 92 to 74’ according to a rather shocking Economist article. And that’s now, not in Victorian London. Of course, it’s those with least who will rely on the state pension the most. But not, sadly, for very long.

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“Annuity rates soar to 14-year high”

“Annuity rates soar to 14-year high”

I was asked this week whether annuities are now ‘a good investment’. They’ve been recommended very rarely in recent years, since ‘pension freedoms’ allowed pretty much unlimited drawdown on pension funds and anything left to be passed on to beneficiaries free of Inheritance Tax.

“Pension fund crisis as gilt yields climb”

“Pension fund crisis as gilt yields climb”

What? Why? With apologies to any investment professionals reading this (if you are, I’m flattered), here it is in a nutshell. To borrow money, the government issues bits of paper (gilts) which say ‘lend us £100, we’ll pay you 1% a year for 20 years and then pay you back’.