It seems odd that only one week ago we had the High Court confirming the legality of enforced retirement at 65 when the Conservative party, which could well form the next Government, is talking in terms of accelerating the increase of state pension age.

The big picture is that with increased longevity and an ageing society, it makes sense to help people to work longer, but a staged approach with encouragement to change plans and the ways we deal with retirement is really what we need. TAEN has always argued for an end to cliff-edge retirement - and never has that objective been more relevant than today with more and more people are interested in combining work and semi-retirement in creative ways.

Actually, we should be separating the ages of state pension and retirement anyway. State Pension Age should be an age of entitlement but people should be encouraged to defer retirement and continue working longer if they are able to or need to. They could then choose whether to draw their pensions at state pension age or later.

And if the gains from doing so were clear, many more would put off taking their state pension until their actual retirement dates. This would mean more taxation revenue so it would benefit the economy.

Presently, delaying taking one’s state pension by a year adds about 10 per cent to its value once it is drawn. Putting off the age of entitlement is literally taking money out of the pockets of older people so unless it is done well, it will be unpopular with an important section of the electorate. 

Any acceleration of the uplift of state pension age would have important implications for those who who currently work beyond state pension age because they need their state pension to supplement a lower paid job, inadequate savings or no company pension. Raising the state pension age earlier will make it harder to repair such financial short falls.

The Conservatives will need to reassure the millions of people who are worried about their incomes in retirement. They will want to know that they are not being placed in jeopardy by this proposal. But how they will do this is far from clear.

Also, it is doubtful that Britain’s workplaces are ready for this change. Some people will find it hard to continue in work another year and are presently retiring early because of stressful conditions, physically demanding jobs or the sheer problems of combining work with care of another family member.

All these sorts of problems confront the older worker who approaches retirement age. Employers, unions, Government and everyone involved in training, careers guidance and occupational health, should be involved in thinking through the implications of making a reality of extending working lives.

Many individuals will welcome the opportunity to carry on in work but will be angered if their resilience is punished by delaying their state pension. Certainly they will be indignant if these changes occur without any wider improvements such as restoring the link with average earnings and improving the value of state pensions generally, though it is not clear whether the Conservatives have any plans of this kind.

The sensible thing would be for Government, employers and individuals to invest more in maintaining the work capacity of people so that they are physically and mentally ready for the challenge of extra years at work. This means many more opportunities to train and develop one’s career and change jobs later in life and it also means employers understanding that there are many changes they can make to working conditions and job design which would make a huge difference to employees.

David Cameron should open up the wider implications of this subject for a debate with a view to adopting a national action programme to extend working lives. It should aim to equip and motivate the UK’ workers to work longer and encourage employers to offer the sorts of flexibility options that companies like BT and Centrica already provide for their employees.

The focus should be on encouragement and incentivising delayed retirement and any thoughts of accelerating the uplift of state pension age should be put back a long way until there has been a fundamental review of state pensions and restoration of the link with average earnings.