Labour announces review of state pension age
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, has announced the next statutory government review into the retirement age as she launched a new pension commission amid concerns over retirement savings.
The commission is expected to provide recommendations for how to boost retirement income in 2027.
The state pension age is 66 and is already expected to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028.
Kendall said she was “under no illusions” about how difficult it would be to map out plans for pensions for the coming decades amid cost-of-living pressures.
Giving a speech in west London, she said:
Put simply, unless we act, tomorrow’s pensioners will be poorer than today’s, because people who are saving aren’t saving enough for their retirement.
And crucially, because almost half of the working age population isn’t saving anything for their retirement at all.
Liz Kendall giving a speech at the Coin Street neighbourhood Centre in London, introducing the next phase of the Pensions Review. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PAShare
Updated at 06.15 EDT
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Ministers to revive Blair-era Pensions Commission to tackle savings crisis
Joanna Partridge
Joanna Partridge is a Guardian business reporter
The government is resurrecting the Pensions Commission, amid fears that a retirement crisis could mean today’s workers will be poorer in retirement than the current crop of pensioners.
The move by ministers to revive the landmark commission, established by Tony Blair’s government in 2002, comes as analysis shows that the income of pensioners is set to fall in the coming decades.
There are warnings that people who plan to retire in 2050 will receive £800 a year on average, or 8% less private pension income than those retiring today. Meanwhile, four in 10, or nearly 15 million people, are not saving enough for their retirement, according to analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The revived Pensions Commission will examine the long-term future of the retirement system and make recommendations for change. Labour hopes its proposals, due to be reported in 2027, will gain cross-party support and be enacted beyond the current parliament.
Liz Kendall, the secretary of state for work and pensions, said she was relaunching the commission to “tackle the barriers that stop too many saving in the first place”.
You can read the full story here:
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Updated at 06.04 EDT
We have some more reaction to Reform’s crime plans (see opening post for details).
The shadow environment minister, Robbie Moore has criticised the proposals as “headline politics” lacking in detail.
He told GB News this morning:
What we are absolutely not seeing, dare I say, from Reform, is the level of detail that provides that reassurance beyond headline politics.
It’s all very well coming out with headline politics and a narrative at a Westminster level, but dare I say, without a lack of understanding, without a lack of detail of how that will be implemented at a grassroots level that is going to be benefiting, all of those constituents that are being negatively impacted from a huge amount of antisocial behaviour that we are seeing, and law and order challenges that we are seeing, not only here in London, but right across the country.
Shortly after becoming prime minister last July, Keir Starmer said the state of the prison service in England and Wales his government had inherited from Rishi Sunak was “unforgiveable”, condeming previous Conservative administrations for failing to build enough new prisons as the prison population ballooned as a result of tougher sentences and court backlogs.
Labour has promised to “take back our streets” by halving rates of serious crime and has promised to reduce court backlogs, and hire more police officers (which could actually worsen the backlogs by creating more criminal cases …). To ease the prison overcrowding crisis, prisoners in England and Wales, including some serious offenders, will be eligible for release after serving a third of their sentence – if they behave well – under new reforms.
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Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike
In other news, the government has announced that a statutory inquiry into the violent confrontation at Orgreave during the 1984 miners’ strike will be established later this year.
The inquiry, expected to launch in the autumn, will investigate the events surrounding clashes at the Orgreave Coking Plant in South Yorkshire on 18 June 1984, which caused 120 injuries.
In total, 95 picketers were arrested and initially charged with riot and violent disorder, but all charges were later dropped after evidence was discredited.
The inquiry will be statutory with powers to compel people to provide information where necessary, the Home Office said.
Joe Rollin, from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC), founded by strike veterans and activists in 2012, who has been calling for an inquiry for over a decade, said he was “cautiously elated” by the news.
Police officers pushing against striking miners outside the Orgreave Coking Plant near Rotheram. Photograph: PAShareHelena Horton
Helena Horton, an environment reporter for the Guardian, explains how the government has reacted to the much-anticipated final report from the Independent Water Commission. Here is a snippet from her story:
The government is expected to adopt the recommendation for England and Wales made in the review it commissioned from Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, which was released on Monday.
Critics have said Ofwat has presided over a culture of underinvestment in infrastructure and financial mismanagement by water companies since its creation in 1989, when the industry was privatised.
Thames Water, the most troubling case for the government and the UK’s largest water company, is loaded with £20bn in debt and struggling to stave off financial collapse into a special administration, a form of temporary nationalisation.
Cunliffe’s review suggested a new regulator, with powers to “direct”, or take control of, failing water firms.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Cunliffe said Ofwat had “failed” because “for many years it didn’t have the powers”. He added: “To be blunt about it, it was directed by government to take a light touch to regulation.”
Cunliffe said the complexities of the water industry required “a broader, less monolithic and a less desk-based approach to economic regulation and to the oversight of companies’ performance against their licences”.
Emma Hardy, the minister for water and flooding, said the government would spend the summer examining how many of the report’s 88 recommendations to adopt.
A major review into the water sector in England and Wales says the regulator Ofwat should be scrapped.
Sir John Cunliffe, author of the report, tells @JustinOnWeb Ofwat was ‘encouraged by government to take a light-touch approach to regulations’.
#R4Today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) July 21, 2025Share
Updated at 04.56 EDT
Major review into England and Wales’ water sector says regulator should be scrapped
Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales, should be overhauled and replaced by an “integrated” watchdog for the industry, according to an independent review of oversight of the sector led by former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Jon Cunliffe.
The report, commissioned amid mounting public anger about pollution, rising bills and executive pay, says Ofwat should be replaced by a single body in England and another one in Wales.
The report also advises removing the regulatory roles of the Environment Agency and Natural England, which monitor the sector’s impact on nature, such as companies illegally dumping sewage into waterways.
Instead, a “joined-up” and “powerful” single integrated water regulator should be established, according to the recommendations.
The report also proposes stronger regulation on abstraction, sludge, drinking water standards and water supply.
You can read more on what was contained within the major review in our business live blog.
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Farage’s plans to reform criminal justice system criticised ahead of speech
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.
Nigel Farage is to lay out plans that he claims would end all early release schemes for sex offenders and serious violent offenders if he were to become prime minister.
In a speech in London later today, the Reform UK leader will also reportedly promise to build 30,000 new prison places to tackle the overcrowding crisis, appoint 30,000 more police officers within five years and deport 10,400 foreign offenders currently in British jails.
He has not said how these policies will be funded and will likely face questions on how he would negotiate return agreements for foreign offenders.
Some of his promises – like sending some of the most serious criminals to overseas jails, including in El Salvador – will also likely face serious legal obstacles if they were ever realised.
Nigel Farage is set to make a speech about the criminal justice system in a speech later today. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA
Farage, whose Reform party is leading many polls, was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as having said:
Reform UK will be the toughest party on law and order this country has ever seen. We will cut crime in half. We will take back control of our streets, we will take back control of our courts and prisons.
We are expecting more details on Reform’s plans at around 11am. Reform’s attempt to woo voters with a tough on crime message stands in contrast to the proposals recently suggested by Sir Brian Leveson, a former senior judge who was asked by the Lord Chancellor to come up with ways to reduce the backlog of cases in the criminal courts.
Recommendations in the report included increased use of out-of-court resolutions, greater use of rehabilitation programmes and health intervention programmes and increasing the maximum reduction for entering a guilty plea at the first opportunity from 33% to 40%.
Diana Johnson, the policing minister, said that Reform is not serious about implementing real changes to the criminal justice system as the party “voted to try to block measures to crack down on knife crime, antisocial behaviour, shop theft and child sexual abuse”.
“They should focus more on practical solutions to support our police, combat crime, deliver justice for victims of crime, rather than chasing headlines, spouting slogans and trying to divide communities,” she added.
Here is the agenda for the day.
09.45am: Sir Jon Cunliffe, Independent Water Commission chair, to give speech.
11am: Nigel Farage to make a speech in London on the criminal justice system.
13:00pm: Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign press conference in Sheffield.
14.30pm: Keir Starmer to appear at the Liaison Committee.
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Updated at 06.07 EDT
