A new online petition calling for a £200 minimum weekly State Pension payment for men and women who reach the official Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) retirement age has passed the threshold which triggers an official response from the UK Government.
The petition suggests that by creating this baseline payment for everyone, 'irrespective of gender, marital status or National Insurance Contributions ' record would remove any anomalies in the current system, including the growing discrepancy between the old and new State Pensions.
The petition has now received more than the required 10,000 signatures which guarantees a response - most likely from the DWP as it delivers State Pension to more than 12.4 million people across the UK. However, this may take until next month as MPs will not return from summer recess to the Houses of Parliament until September 5, 2022.
Petition creator, Dennis Reed from campaign group Silver Voices, states that creating a baseline £200 payment would create a Minimum Pension Guarantee (MPG). He wrote that research by the group, taken from DWP sources, reveals that in September 2020 only six per cent of State Pensioners received the top rate of the new State Pension at £185.15 per week, while 87 per cent received a basic State Pension of £141.85 or less.
Mr Reed wrote on the petitions-parliament website: “The UK provides the worst State Pension in the developed world, which is insufficient for life’s essentials, particularly with surging energy and food prices.”
He added: “After a lifetime of tax and National Insurance Contributions, older people deserve a minimum income of £200 per week without recourse to the benefits system.”
A similar petition created in April called on the UK Government to increase State Pension payments to £19,760 per year, the equivalent to £380 each week which would bring it into line with current National Living Wage (NLW) rates, is approaching a significant milestone.
However, despite receiving more than 51, 622 signatures of support from across the UK, the DWP responded to it saying that the UK Government “has no plans to match State Pension and the NLW, which serve different purposes” and highlighted how it has “never paid our pensioners more, spending over £134 billion on pensioner benefits this year”.
The ‘Set a Minimum Pension Guarantee (MPG) of at least £200 pw for state pensioners’ petition has mow received more than 10,248 signatures of support (at time of writing) - at 100,000 this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
You can view the full petition details here.
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