A think tank headed by former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has been condemned for suggesting that the state pension age (SPA) should be raised to 75.

The Centre of Social Justice (CSJ) report proposes that the government speeds up the increase in the pension age to 70 by 2028 and to 75 by 2035 to “help boost the UK economy.” The change would hit hundreds of thousands of people currently aged 50 to 64. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell condemned the think tank for wanting to have people work “until they drop.”

Glasgow North East Labour MP Paul Sweeney said the idea is “despicable”, adding: “In Glasgow, average male life expectancy is 73, and 78 for females. What is the Tory plan to address this? Raise the state pension age to 75.” The CSJ’s report, ‘Ageing confidently: Supporting an ageing workforce’, claims that working into your 70s would prevent “state dependence, social marginalisation and personal destitution.” In 2017, the TUC and unions condemned the Conservatives decision to bring forward the date the pension age shifts to 68, warning many won’t survive their jobs that long.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “In large parts of the country, the state pension age will be higher than healthy life expectancy.”

Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary for Unite, said: “In industries such as construction, the majority of the workforce are already forced out of their roles prior to 65 because of ill-health and injury. This increase will result in even more workers being forced into poverty, too old to work but too young to claim a pension.” Latest official figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show in the UK in 2015 to 2017, “healthy life expectancy (HLE) at birth was 63.1 years for males and for females was 63.6 years.” But this masks a wide disparity between the richest and poorest areas, with ONS noting: “HLE at birth across local authority areas of the UK varies by 21.5 years for females and 15.8 years for males in 2015 to 2017.”