‘ People have had to accept pension poverty’

Philip Hunt said pension provision in Britain was “abysmal” compared with countries in the European Union. The UK has the worst mandatory pension provision of all 36 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which includes the US, Australia, Canada and major European nations.

“The worst thing is, it has gone on for so long due to successive incompetent governments that people accept that you’re going to have to live in poverty as a pensioner unless you’re fit enough to do something else to get by,” he said. There has been an unwillingness to rectify the situation as pensioners have fallen down the Government’s list of priorities, he added. “And I’m therefore amazed that so many elderly people have done so much to help the community during the Covid pandemic.”

‘ The young have it easy while we are ignored’ Peter Macdonald

Peter Macdonald, 63, from Wiltshire, said younger people had had an easier time than his generation, with record low mortgage rates and stamp duty holidays.

“People say it wouldn’t be fair to the young, but that is nonsense. My wife had to save up for a month to buy a microwave when we were young … people of the same age today have an easier life,” he said.

“The state pension is below the minimum to have a reasonable standard of life. There are assumptions that everyone has an occupational pension to boost it, but that isn’t true,” he added.

Spending power is eroded each year for pensioners due to the rising cost of care, heating, rail fares and new expenses such as the TV licence, he said. Household costs have risen faster for pensioners than for the working population over the past decade, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The Government would be disingenuous if it said it couldn’t afford it, he added. “Governments are fond of giving away UK taxpayer money internationally on moral duty but fail to exercise the same morality when considering the plight of its own citizens.”