Labour declares overview of state pension age
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has introduced the following statutory authorities overview into the retirement age as she launched a brand new pension fee amid considerations over retirement financial savings.
The fee is anticipated to offer suggestions for tips on how to increase retirement earnings in 2027.
The state pension age is 66 and is already anticipated to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028.
Kendall stated she was “underneath no illusions” about how troublesome it might be to map out plans for pensions for the approaching a long time amid cost-of-living pressures.
Giving a speech in west London, she stated:
Put merely, until we act, tomorrow’s pensioners will probably be poorer than right now’s, as a result of people who find themselves saving aren’t saving sufficient for his or her retirement.
And crucially, as a result of virtually half of the working age inhabitants isn’t saving something for his or her retirement in any respect.
Key occasions
The Division for Work and Pensions (DWP) stated “stark” new evaluation confirmed that:
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Over three million self-employed are usually not saving right into a pension.
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Just one in 4 low earners within the personal sector are saving right into a pension.
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Just one in 4 of these from a Pakistani or Bangladeshi background are saving.
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The brand new evaluation reveals a 48% gender pensions hole in personal pension wealth between ladies and men, with a typical lady receiving simply over £100 per week and a person receiving £200 from personal pension earnings.
You’ll be able to learn the total press launch from the DWP here.
Labour declares overview of state pension age
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has introduced the following statutory authorities overview into the retirement age as she launched a brand new pension fee amid considerations over retirement financial savings.
The fee is anticipated to offer suggestions for tips on how to increase retirement earnings in 2027.
The state pension age is 66 and is already anticipated to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028.
Kendall stated she was “underneath no illusions” about how troublesome it might be to map out plans for pensions for the approaching a long time amid cost-of-living pressures.
Giving a speech in west London, she stated:
Put merely, until we act, tomorrow’s pensioners will probably be poorer than right now’s, as a result of people who find themselves saving aren’t saving sufficient for his or her retirement.
And crucially, as a result of virtually half of the working age inhabitants isn’t saving something for his or her retirement in any respect.
Ministers to revive Blair-era Pensions Fee to sort out financial savings disaster
Joanna Partridge
Joanna Partridge is a Guardian enterprise reporter
The federal government is resurrecting the Pensions Fee, amid fears {that a} retirement disaster may imply right now’s employees will probably be poorer in retirement than the present crop of pensioners.
The transfer by ministers to revive the landmark fee, established by Tony Blair’s government in 2002, comes as evaluation exhibits that the earnings of pensioners is ready to fall within the coming a long time.
There are warnings that individuals who plan to retire in 2050 will obtain £800 a yr on common, or 8% much less personal pension earnings than these retiring right now. In the meantime, 4 in 10, or almost 15 million individuals, are usually not saving sufficient for his or her retirement, in response to evaluation by the Division for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The revived Pensions Fee will look at the long-term way forward for the retirement system and make suggestions for change. Labour hopes its proposals, on account of be reported in 2027, will acquire cross-party help and be enacted past the present parliament.
Liz Kendall, the secretary of state for work and pensions, stated she was relaunching the fee to “sort out the obstacles that cease too many saving within the first place”.
You’ll be able to learn the total story right here:
We now have some extra response to Reform’s crime plans (see opening post for particulars).
The shadow atmosphere minister, Robbie Moore has criticised the proposals as “headline politics” missing intimately.
He told GB News this morning:
What we’re completely not seeing, dare I say, from Reform, is the extent of element that gives that reassurance past headline politics.
It’s all very properly popping out with headline politics and a story at a Westminster degree, however dare I say, with out a lack of information, with out a lack of element of how that will probably be applied at a grassroots degree that’s going to be benefiting, all of these constituents which can be being negatively impacted from an enormous quantity of delinquent behaviour that we’re seeing, and regulation and order challenges that we’re seeing, not solely right here in London, however proper throughout the nation.
Shortly after turning into prime minister final July, Keir Starmer stated the state of the jail service in England and Wales his authorities had inherited from Rishi Sunak was “unforgiveable”, condeming earlier Conservative administrations for failing to construct sufficient new prisons because the jail inhabitants ballooned as a results of more durable sentences and court docket backlogs.
Labour has promised to “take back our streets” by halving charges of great crime and has promised to scale back court docket backlogs, and rent extra law enforcement officials (which may really worsen the backlogs by creating extra prison circumstances …). To ease the jail overcrowding disaster, prisoners in England and Wales, together with some severe offenders, will probably be eligible for launch after serving a 3rd of their sentence – in the event that they behave properly – underneath new reforms.
Authorities launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike
In different information, the federal government has introduced {that a} statutory inquiry into the violent confrontation at Orgreave in the course of the 1984 miners’ strike will probably be established later this yr.
The inquiry, anticipated to launch within the autumn, will examine the occasions surrounding clashes on the Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire on 18 June 1984, which triggered 120 accidents.
In whole, 95 picketers have been arrested and initially charged with riot and violent dysfunction, however all costs have been later dropped after proof was discredited.
The inquiry will probably be statutory with powers to compel individuals to offer data the place crucial, the Residence Workplace stated.
Joe Rollin, from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), based by strike veterans and activists in 2012, who has been calling for an inquiry for over a decade, stated he was “cautiously elated” by the information.
Helena Horton
Helena Horton, an atmosphere reporter for the Guardian, explains how the federal government has reacted to the much-anticipated last report from the Impartial Water Fee. Here’s a snippet from her story:
The federal government is anticipated to undertake the advice for England and Wales made within the overview it commissioned from Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Financial institution of England, which was launched on Monday.
Critics have stated Ofwat has presided over a tradition of underinvestment in infrastructure and monetary mismanagement by water corporations since its creation in 1989, when the trade was privatised.
Thames Water, essentially the most troubling case for the federal government and the UK’s largest water firm, is loaded with £20bn in debt and struggling to stave off monetary collapse right into a particular administration, a type of short-term nationalisation.
Cunliffe’s overview instructed a brand new regulator, with powers to “direct”, or take management of, failing water corporations.
Talking on BBC Radio 4’s At the moment Programme, Cunliffe stated Ofwat had “failed” as a result of “for a few years it didn’t have the powers”. He added: “To be blunt about it, it was directed by authorities to take a lightweight contact to regulation.”
Cunliffe stated the complexities of the water trade required “a broader, much less monolithic and a much less desk-based strategy to financial regulation and to the oversight of corporations’ efficiency towards their licences”.
Emma Hardy, the minister for water and flooding, stated the federal government would spend the summer time analyzing how most of the report’s 88 suggestions to undertake.
A serious overview into the water sector in England and Wales says the regulator Ofwat must be scrapped.
Sir John Cunliffe, writer of the report, tells @JustinOnWeb Ofwat was ‘inspired by authorities to take a light-touch strategy to laws’.
#R4Today— BBC Radio 4 At the moment (@BBCr4today) July 21, 2025
Main overview into England and Wales’ water sector says regulator must be scrapped
Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales, must be overhauled and changed by an “built-in” watchdog for the trade, in response to an impartial overview of oversight of the sector led by former Financial institution of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe.
The report, commissioned amid mounting public anger about air pollution, rising payments and government pay, says Ofwat must be changed by a single physique in England and one other one in Wales.
The report additionally advises eradicating the regulatory roles of the Setting Company and Pure England, which monitor the sector’s affect on nature, akin to corporations illegally dumping sewage into waterways.
As a substitute, a “joined-up” and “highly effective” single built-in water regulator must be established, in response to the suggestions.
The report additionally proposes stronger regulation on abstraction, sludge, ingesting water requirements and water provide.
You’ll be able to learn extra on what was contained throughout the main overview in our business live blog.
Farage’s plans to reform prison justice system criticised forward of speech
Good morning and welcome to our dwell protection of UK politics.
Nigel Farage is to put out plans that he claims would finish all early launch schemes for intercourse offenders and severe violent offenders if he have been to grow to be prime minister.
In a speech in London later right now, the Reform UK chief may also reportedly promise to construct 30,000 new jail locations to sort out the overcrowding disaster, appoint 30,000 extra law enforcement officials inside 5 years and deport 10,400 overseas offenders presently in British jails.
He has not stated how these insurance policies will probably be funded and can seemingly face questions on how he would negotiate return agreements for overseas offenders.
A few of his guarantees – like sending among the most severe criminals to abroad jails, together with in El Salvador – may also seemingly face severe authorized obstacles in the event that they have been ever realised.
Farage, whose Reform occasion is main many polls, was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as having stated:
Reform UK would be the hardest occasion on regulation and order this nation has ever seen. We’ll lower crime in half. We’ll take again management of our streets, we are going to take again management of our courts and prisons.
We predict extra particulars on Reform’s plans at round 11am. Reform’s try to woo voters with a tricky on crime message stands in distinction to the proposals lately instructed by Sir Brian Leveson, a former senior choose who was requested by the Lord Chancellor to provide you with methods to scale back the backlog of circumstances within the prison courts.
Recommendations in the report included elevated use of out-of-court resolutions, better use of rehabilitation programmes and well being intervention programmes and rising the utmost discount for coming into a responsible plea on the first alternative from 33% to 40%.
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, stated that Reform is just not severe about implementing actual adjustments to the prison justice system because the occasion “voted to attempt to block measures to crack down on knife crime, delinquent behaviour, store theft and youngster sexual abuse”.
“They need to focus extra on sensible options to help our police, fight crime, ship justice for victims of crime, somewhat than chasing headlines, spouting slogans and making an attempt to divide communities,” she added.
Right here is the agenda for the day.
09.45am: Sir Jon Cunliffe, Impartial Water Fee chair, to offer speech.
11am: Nigel Farage to make a speech in London on the prison justice system.
13:00pm: Orgreave Fact and Justice Marketing campaign press convention in Sheffield.
14.30pm: Keir Starmer to seem on the Liaison Committee.
