- Conference
- 2025 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 17 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried
• An Old Age Pension was introduced on 1st January 1909 available to both sexes over the age of 70 if they were of ‘good Character’.
• In 1925 a contribution-based State Pension started to be paid to men and women when they retired from work at age of 65 but a higher rate of pension could be claimed if they were both aged 65. Most women at that time were younger than their husbands and many did not work so there was most always a wait to claim the higher rate. To try to ameliorate this problem, in 1940 the date a woman could claim the State Pension was reduced to 60.
• Under the National Insurance scheme, introduced in 1948, men claimed State Pension aged 65. If their wife was under 60 and did not work, there was Dependants Allowance until she could claim her pension, or an element of his pension, at age 60.
• In 1995 due to pressure from the EU to equalise the pension age as in most EU countries, the Conservative Government introduced plans to do this by April 2020. In 2010 the State Pension age for women began to rise.
• David Cameron introduced a New State Pension on 6 April 2016 for everyone who reached retirement age at a rate of £8,093.80p per annum. Anyone who was older on that date could claim the Old State Pension at a much lower rate of £6,203.60p per annum. To offset this difference benefits could be claimed. Claiming benefits while not working was not easy so in October 2023 a means tested benefit called Pension Credit was introduced specifically for people claiming State Pensions.
• In April 2025 the New State Pension was increased to £11,976 per annum and the Old State Pension £9,175 per annum a difference of £2,805 per year.
1.The Yorkshire & Humberside Region Retired Members Committee believes that most of the pensioners claiming benefits to supplement their financial income are on the Old State Pension.
2. We do not accept that people who have paid into the NI scheme during their working life should need to claim benefits to have a decent income to live on in their old age.
3. The present Labour Government has so far failed to address this problem but
since its inception the Labour Party has consistently advocated for socialist ideological policies aimed at reducing inequality of income and wealth in the UK.
4. Equalising the rate of pensions would reduce the need for many older people to claim benefits so save the state money on the bureaucratic process of assessing claims.
This Conference believes it is time to end pension inequality among older people and calls on the National Retired Members Committee to work with UNISON NEC to implement a campaign to influence the Secretary of State for Works & Pensions to abolish the Old State Pension rate and allow all pensioners to claim the New State Pension as of right.