Labour at Work. Stop till you Drop!

8.28.31pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 20th Jun 2004

Labour plans to make people work till they are 70 in order to overcome the pensions crisis which the chancellor has caused. They are planning to use Age Discrimination Legislation, which comes into effect in 2006 to raise the retirement age, or abolish it altogether, and stop organisations imposing an earlier date on their employees.

The pensions crisis has been caused by another of the Labour chancellor's stealth taxes. He is raising £5 billion a year from pension funds by changing the rules on advanced corporation tax. This has resulted in a wholesale closure of occupational "final salary" pension schemes. Future generations of pensioners are going to be very much worse off.

This issue of retirement age could become the biggest cabinet dispute since the row over ID cards late last year, and is likely to be a serious issue in the general election, especially for those approaching retirement age, as it will affect them soonest.

Trade union leaders have warned that one fifth of the workforce (and a third of men) would die before they received their occupational pensions, but it is claimed that the state pension would remain at 65, although of course it would be taxed as income!