British pensioners to keep on working

A report by Lord Turner's Pension Commission recommends a pensions savings scheme which requires employees to put six per cent of their earnings away on top of their taxes and national insurance contributions.

The Commission was set up to review pensions amid fears that many Britons are heading for poverty in old age.

Other recommendations include a new national savings plan in which people will automatically be enrolled when they start a job, with the right, for a limited period, to opt out.

The Commission also believes the state pension should also be closer to the Ј109-a-week means-tested minimum income guarantee rather than an Ј80-a-week basic state pension.

The pension should rise in line with earnings, not just prices, and the changes will be phased in after 2020 when the women's state pension age is aligned with men's at 65. After that, the age should rise in accordance with the rate at which people are living longer.

The Commission is also thought to be looking at ways of making the state pension more generous, either through scrapping the existing second state pension and its associated rebates, or by keeping it but making it flat rate, BBC reports.

V.Y.