Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has described the Cridland review of the State Pension Age (SPA) as “asking all the right questions, but coming up with the wrong answers”.

The report graphically illustrating the gross inequality in life expectancy both between and within geographical areas, the financial disadvantages facing carers and those with a disability and the evidence that only half of all years spent in retirement are in good health. However, campaigners have expressed dismay that the review has still called for an increase in the SPA, a long-term reduction in the value of the state pension and very little help for those who will be unable to keep working.

Jan Shortt, the new general secretary of the NPC said: “The UK already has one of the highest SPAs in the developed world, but now John Cridland is suggesting we go to 68, seven years earlier. It flies in the face of the evidence he has found which clearly shows how rising life expectancy is not equal across society, and that living longer does not automatically mean that an individual is still able to work. This is going to have a terrible effect on many of those working in demanding, stressful and very physical jobs.

“The suggestion that carers and disabled people can access means-tested support just one year before they reach their SPA is both mean and completely inadequate – and fails to recognise the real hardship that they will face. And Generation X born in the mid 60s to late 70s are the ones who are being told they must work longer, pay more and get less when they retire.”

“It also seems strange that in his first report, John Cridland went a long way to dispel the myth that there is a generational divide, by showing that for the vast majority of baby boomers, and those from generations X and Y, the bulk of their income in retirement will come from the state pension. But he bizarrely ends up recommending that everyone should see the value of their state pension fall by axing the triple lock.

“He has clearly asked the right questions, but come up with the wrong answers. There can be little doubt that the future of the triple lock will now become a key election issue in 2020 for all generations.”