Birmingham Live correction page for state pension story, dated 20 March 2026
Reach website Birmingham Live published a “significantly misleading” headline about the state pension age, press regulator IPSO has found.
It is the fourth Birmingham Live headline to have been ruled misleading by IPSO in just over a year.
Reach national title the Daily Express had 12 similar upheld complaints in 2025, largely relating to economic policy.
The latest Birmingham Live complaint was submitted by Iona Bain, a freelance financial journalist who is the resident money expert on BBC Morning Live and money columnist for The Observer.
The article, published in August, was headlined: “State pensioners set to receive state pension for ‘just three years of lifetime’.” An image caption repeated the same wording.
The article, setting out what would happen if a proposal to increase the state pension age to 70 was followed, contained a quote from an expert speculating that people in Blackpool, where the average male life expectancy is the lowest in the country at 73, would not receive their full state pension.
The article said: “State pensioners have been issued a warning over an ‘unfair’ change for people from one part of [the] UK. [The broker] issued a warning over older people potentially having to wait until their 70s to claim their Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) payments.”
Bain argued that the headline wrongly gave the impression a move to a state pension age of 70 had been announced, reinforced by the phrase “set to”. She also said it sounded like all UK pensioners were impacted, not that it was referring to a subset in Blackpool.
The publisher argued that headlines are “not intended to be read in isolation, and must be read in the context of the accompanying article” and that it did not use the word “all” so did not suggest every state pensioner was affected.
However IPSO said the headline “would be taken by a reader to mean that a decision had been taken in regard to state pensions, due to the use of the words ‘set to’, which would result in some pensioners receiving their pension ‘for ‘just three years’”.
It said this was also suggested to readers through the opening paragraph, which said state pensioners had been “issued a warning over an ‘unfair’ change”.
IPSO said the use of inverted commas around “just three years of lifetime” was not “sufficient to distinguish the headline in its entirety as comment and conjecture” as the publication had argued.
The regulator therefore found that “the headline was misleading and unsupported by the text of the article, as was the image caption…
“The misleading information suggested that pensioners may receive less of their state pensions. The Committee considered this significant – it is important readers are accurately informed on information which may affect their personal finances and long-term financial planning. The misleading information also appeared in the headline, increasing its prominence and visibility to a reader.”
IPSO ruled there had been a breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice and ordered that a correction should be published.
In February 2025 IPSO ruled two headlines published by Birmingham Live on stories relating to free bus passes and triple lock pensions for state pensioners were both “actively misleading”.
Reach had similarly argued the use of inverted commas in both headlines distinguished between comment, conjecture and fact but IPSO disagreed.
In November 2025 IPSO found a Birmingham Live headline about a supposed charge for drivers using cruise control had the “clear potential to mislead on a matter of clear interest and concern to the public: charges faced by motorists”.
One of the 12 Express headlines found to be misleading or inaccurate last year read: “Exact date all state pensioners will start paying tax after triple lock change.”
A further complaint about Express website’s state pension coverage was successfully mediated by IPSO in February as the publication offered to change three headlines and publish corrections.
Those headlines, published in November 2025, were:
“State pensioners given £241 benefit on Wednesday”. Changed to: “State pensioners to be given £241 benefit in announcement on Wednesday”
“Older state pensioners given £440 extra cash on Wednesday”. Changed to: “Older state pensioners given £440 extra cash in announcement on Wednesday”
“State pensioners born in these years handed extra £575 today”. Changed to: “State pensioners born in these years handed extra £575 in announcement today”
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