Terminally ill people urge government to pay pensions early ‘to enjoy life while you can’

Marie Curie claims the cost would be £114 million a year, roughly one tenth of one per cent of annual state pension bill

The need is particularly pressing given the cost of living crisis, campaigners say (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Terminally ill people are calling for the government to start paying their state pensions earlier.

End-of-life charity Marie Curie claims the cost would be £114 million a year, which amounts to one tenth of one per cent of the annual state pension bill.

Those with a terminal illness who are of working age are twice as likely to spend their final year of life in poverty, the charity says.

Marie Curie also estimates that people of working age who die of a terminal illness have paid more than 23 years of national insurance contributions.

A petition which is in support of the pension reform has attracted 164,000 signatures, and polls indicate that 75 per cent of UK adults support the idea.

The charity’s campaign states that nobody should spend their final days worrying about money.

“Ninety thousand people die in poverty every year in the UK,” the charity says. “That’s 10 an hour.

“Squeezed by the cost of living crisis, and by the extra costs that mount up once you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, thousands of dying people are struggling to make ends meet with next to no help. This has to change.”

The petition has three requests for the government: “Give all dying people their State Pension, no matter their age, protect dying people from soaring energy bills” and “support dying parents with childcare costs.”

Mark Whittaker, whose wife Cheryl, 61, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer said that the ability to access a state pension earlier would “change everything.”

“The oncologist basically said just go and enjoy the rest of your life together while you can, which was traumatic in itself,” he told the Guardian. “Financially, things are just as distressing as the cancer; we are surviving on credit cards at the moment.”

The Independent has contacted The Department for Work and Pensions for comment.