Court ruling confirms the importance of retirement planning

Tom McPhail, Head of Policy at Hargreaves Lansdown commented: “The Government will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief at this judgement, as any financial remedy would have cost them many billions of pounds to deliver. Given most of the women involved are now already past their revised state pension age, it is hard to see where the campaign will go from here.

“It is axiomatic that retirement ages have to rise. It is simply not possible to offset the combination of longer life expectancy, stagnant wages and low interest rates, without working longer and retiring for less time. The critical learning point from this court judgement is people need to prepare for retirement well in advance. It was this disconnect between these women’s expectations and their impending reality check of a later state pension, which has resulted in the lawyers getting involved.

“Millions of people in their 40s and 50s are still heading towards a nasty shock when they find out what retirement has in store for them.”

The company believes that everyone should take the trouble to find out:

What their private savings will produce

How and when they can access them

How and where they are invested

What their retirement needs will be

How and when they would like to draw on their savings

How they will manage their transition from work to retirement

Whether they want to learn any new skills or retrain

Where they will live in retirement

The government and employers have a role to play too, in facilitating part-time work, job sharing, retraining, a managed exit from the workforce and financial capability support among other issues.