SIR – Chancellor George Osborne has raised the age for future claimants to qualify for state pension to 70 on the basis that there is a financial ‘hole’ in the state’s ability to support this at an earlier age, as was previously the case.

He has justified this by claiming people are living longer nowadays, so the implication is they would have been claiming state pension longer if he had not made the change, so costing the state more.

In Britain today, life expectancy varies enormously and last week some experts predicted that thousands of the poorest people “will be dead before they can retire” if sweeping pension reforms are not matched by urgent action on health inequalities between rich and poor.

For example, someone born in the London borough of Kensington & Chelsea can expect on average to live to 85, whereas average life expectancy in some of Glasgow’s most deprived areas is as low as 66.

Mr Osborne has clearly used the average for the whole country as his yardstick, but as with all averages, there are those above and below. And of course, once again we have an example of how the people of this country are not “all in it together!”

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose