Press Coverage - 18/07/2023

Pensioner advocates push for wider help with inflation

David Greene spoke to Law360 recently about his work with the Deprived Pensioners Association, a pressure group aiming to challenge the government over rules that prevent older pensioners from having their retirement benefits rise in line with inflation.

A pressure group has said that it plans to challenge the government over rules that prevent older pensioners from having their retirement benefits rise in line with inflation.

The group, the Deprived Pensioners Association, said it has retained David Greene of Edwin Coe LLP as it crowdfunds a “judicial review” over legislation dating back to 2004.

The association said on Sunday that 60,000 Britons over the age of 80 whose retirement benefits are paid by the Pension Protection Fund do not get so-called pension indexation. Benefits increase in line with inflation, up to 2.5% a year, under the provision. The cost of living as measured by the Consumer Prices Index rose 8.7% in the year to May 2023.

“At a time of high inflation the effect of this provision of the law is devastating for thousands of pensioners,” Greene, a former president of the Law Society, said in a statement. “There can be no doubt that the effect of this is to discriminate on the basis of age: older pensioners suffer more than younger. We will seek to challenge this discriminatory law in court and campaign for government action to right this fundamental wrong.”

The association was set up by former directors at construction company John Mowlem & Co. PLC, which was bought by Carillion PLC in 2006. Carillion itself became insolvent in 2018, and the company’s pension schemes entered into PPF assessment that year…

Read the full article on Law360’s website (subscription may be required).

Further coverage of this story includes: