Up to £41million a year is saved every year by sending UK state pensioners to prisons, new figures have shown. According to newly released data, 3,562 people aged 66 and above are serving at His Majesty’s pleasure and therefore can’t receive the payments until they are released. They are missing out on £11,502 a year, which saves the Treasury a potential £788,000 per week, the Telegraph reports.
Paula Harriott of the criminal justice charity Unlock told the newspaper: “By the age of 66, a male prisoner may have been working for 50 years before their imprisonment, during which time they would have made significant National Insurance contributions. Withholding the payment of a state pension is an additional punishment to that imposed by in court. We believe that a sentenced prisoner in the UK who is eligible for a state pension should receive it as a right, having paid their contributions.”
She added: “Removing the state pension from an elderly prisoner leads to a reliance on a very small amount of ‘retirement pay’ and the amount can vary across the prison estate. Those that would otherwise be retired are forced into finding a job within the prison to supplement their income, which can be difficult for those that are less fit and well.”
In 2024, the Prison Reform Trust quoted a “male prisoner” as saying: “The government policy of depriving retired prisoners of their state pension is unfair, especially to those with paid National Insurance contributions. It is, in effect, an additional and arbitrary punishment.”
A report added: “For those leaving prison later in life, the future can be uncertain. Participants raised a range of concerns including about financial and accommodation prospects upon release, being unable to return home and/or having nowhere to return to.
“Many will be beyond working age, with reduced or no pension and national insurance contributions accrued (prisoners are limited to £900 in prison account savings and external bank accounts may go dormant after a period without activity and correspondence).
“Faced with these challenges, some participants feel that staying in prison until death would be a preferable option to being released into uncertainty, poverty and homelessness.”
Campaigners also reccomended that UK prisons should allow for those serving long sentences to save money and contribute towards a pension.
“This includes addressing the practical issues surrounding access to external bank accounts,” they wrote, “which can impact upon people’s ability to save for their release, along with the prison bank account cap, which can limit what a person can save.”
