Letter: Pension promise

Sir: Professor Walter Elkan (letter, 6 January) is quite right that means testing is very difficult and expensive to administer.

If the Government were to honour its promise that pensioners will share in the prosperity of the country and start increasing the state pension, with restoration of the earnings link, to a level that enabled pensioners to live an independent life, there would be no need for handouts, or means testing for a proud generation who willingly paid their tax and National Insurance to look after people older and younger than themselves in the expectation they in turn would have dignity in their later years.

CLIFFORD FULLER

Churchdown, Gloucestershire