Millions of workers aged under 40 face having to work until they are 70 before they can claim their state pension – even if the triple lock is abolished.
Experts believe the state pension age will increase to 70, even if the guarantee for pensioners is scrapped following repeated warnings about the strain it places on the public finances.
The triple lock ensures that the state pension rises each year by the highest of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent, but costs have ballooned in recent years following economic shocks.
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How salsa classes improve your mental health
Caption: Salsa dancers perform during the “The Legends of Salsa” event as part of the 20th World Salsa Festival in Cali, Colombia, on September 25, 2025. (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP) (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty Images)
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Salsa is one of the world’s most popular dance forms, and new research suggests that it could reduce anxiety and depression.
A closer look at the study
In the study conducted by the University of Oxford and the Oxford Health NHS Trust, 121 young adults aged 18-24 years old with mild to moderate depression and anxiety were randomly assigned to either a salsa dance programme or a control group.
Caption: ALBANY, NY – JULY 8: Salsa dancers at the opening event of Arts in the City program on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Empire Live Underground in Albany, NY. The new, free weekly series to promote creativity and wellness through the arts will continue on July 15. (Jim Franco/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
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Caption: LIMA, PERU – JULY 4: Hundreds of couples gathered for the world??s largest salsa dance class on July 4, 2026, in Lima, Peru. More than 2,000 couples joined a massive salsa class in Lima, setting the Guinness World Records title for the world’s largest salsa dance class. Organized by the Municipalidad del Callao, the event brought together dancers of all ages in a lively celebration of music, rhythm, and community. The record highlighted Peru’s strong salsa tradition and its role as a key reference for the genre, while also reflecting the cultural energy and public enthusiasm that keep salsa central to life in the country. (Photo by Klebher Vasquez/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Both groups in the study, which was published in the journal Psychological Medicine, completed mental health quesitonnaires before, during and after the eight-week programme.
The findings
The study found the salsa dancers showed a significantly greater reduction in depression and social anxiety symptoms, plus greater increases in daily happiness.
Further clinical trials would be needed before salsa could be reliably prescribed to treat clinical depression, but the researchers say their “noteworthy” findings show “mental health shouldn’t begin and end in a consulting room”.
LIFESTYLE
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LIFESTYLE
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‘An adjunctive intervention’
GPs and social prescribing services could consider accessible social-dance classes as an optional wellbeing or adjunctive intervention, particularly for young people who find them appealing.
Brennan delattre, lead author of the research
Caption: WARSAW, MAZOVIA, POLAND – 2025/07/13: Dancers enjoy the free Latin dance party. Norblin Factory Foundation and Dance Studio Salsa Libre invite Varsovian visitors to a unique series of dance meetings. Led by Maja Borkowska and Lukasz Marynowski, the program includes free Salsa and Bachata lessons then an open-air Latin dance party. (Photo by Neil Milton/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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‘Treating a dance deficiency’
This study does not suggest that salsa is a cure for depression, rather a useful tool to add to existing options.
Dr Keir Philip, a clinical lecturer for the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, suggested the research “is actually treating a dance deficiency that we didn’t know we have”.
Caption: a couple dance the salsa alongside Camden Lock in north London on May 28, 2020, as lockdown measures are eased during the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Tolga Akmen / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
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Was Trump’s intervention really worth it? (Photo: Reuters)
Trump’s america
How the World Cup has exposed the great American lie
The World Cup is built on the idea that anyone can belong anywhere for a moment.
Yet, watching from America, that freedom feels distant.
‘Unmistakable contrast’
Here, movement is something you measure, calculate, sometimes avoid. Visa denials, immigration enforcement and racialised policing turn the simple act of going somewhere into a negotiation with risk.
A federal agent lobs a teargas canister towards protesters during clashes following Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis (Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP)
The Balogun saga was a stain on the tournament (Photo: Getty)
I worked for two US presidents, which taught me how national systems are meant to protect people. This World Cup makes it impossible to ignore how unsafe America has become for many communities under Trump. The contrast between global ease and domestic insecurity is unmistakable.
‘World Cup shows it can be simple’
For several weeks, I have seen a statement circulating across social media. It reads: “The World Cup is proof that, if it were not for our leaders, the vast majority of people around the world would get along just fine.” The sentiment is simplified, the reality far more complex, yet it captures something real about this moment. It reflects the sense that ordinary people, given the chance, can share space, joy, and belonging without fear.
FOOTBALL
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WORLD
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‘Safety is conditional in America’
This tournament showed how easily connection can happen when it is not mediated by borders, surveillance or political agendas.
Police across the United States have used heavy-handed tactics to deal with protests in recent months (Photo: AFP)
Curacao fans cheer for their team at a World Cup 2026 group match against the Ivory Coast in Philadelphia, USA. ‘The tournament showed that ordinary people can share space, joy, and belonging without fear,’ says Karine Jean-Pierre (Photo: Abdulhamid Hosbas/Getty)
It offered a glimpse of people moving through the world without fear, when belonging is assumed rather than negotiated. Watching from America made the contrast impossible to ignore. Here, safety is not a shared condition. It is something granted, withheld, or withdrawn depending on race, status, political climate.
Caption: U.S. President Donald Trump, right, is presented a referee red card by Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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And when it’s all over…
The World Cup will end. The flags will come down. The stadiums will empty. The question it raised will remain.
America likes to imagine itself as a place where anyone can belong. The tournament showed how far we are from that ideal.
Everything we know about Andy Burnham’s policies
Here is what we know so far about the positions of the incoming prime minister Andy Burnham in several key policy areas.
Caption: Andy Burnham speaks after being confirmed as the Labour Party’s new leader and the country’s next prime minister, during ‘Labour’s Special Conference’ in central London on July 17, 2026. (Photo by Henry NICHOLLS / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
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Devolution discussion
Burnham has spoken about pushing powers to local leaders outside Westminster, which could include giving town halls further control over tax-raising powers in a bid to help areas build transport links and housing, create jobs and control their own prosperity.
Caption: The site of the former Central Retail Park, in Great Ascots Street, Manchester, the location for the Manchester Digital Campus development, which is the proposed site for Andy Burnham’s “No10 North” department if he becomes prime minister. The campus is located on a disused brownfield site in the Ancoats area of Manchester city centre. Picture date: Friday July 3, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: Peter Byrne/PA Wire
Photographer: Peter Byrne
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Makerfield MP Andy Burnham said: ‘I heard on doorsteps in Makerfield how people need a bit extra now to help with rising costs’ (Photo: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters)
He has pledged to create “No 10 North”, a Downing Street outpost in Manchester which will serve as the “nerve centre” to deliver priorities like reindustrialisation and redistributing power across the UK.
Some wiggle room on taxes
On taxes, Burnham says he plans to stick to Labour’s 2024 manifesto.
This would mean no rises to income tax, VAT or individual national insurance contributions.
However, he has suggested there is “some room” for movement on taxes within the manifesto.
He plans to raise taxes on warehouses for online giants like Amazon, to help fund rate cuts for hospitality businesses.
Interview
4 min read
Pushing for reform
1Burnham has frequently supported electoral reform, eyeing a more proportional voting system.
2Social care reform is on his agenda, too – he has hinted at bringing forward a funding review to the end of 2026.
3On defence, Burnham said he wants to rebuild Britain’s “hard power” and vowed to reduce foreign dependency.
Welfare and work
Burnham has pledged not to scrap the state pension triple lock, meaning he faces similar welfare problems to his predecessor.
He has mentioned creating “parity” between technical training and university education, so young people can choose the career path right for them, as well as creating jobs by reindustrialising parts of the country hit hard by the loss of heavy industry.
POLITICS
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Big Read
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Housing and the environment
There are now 131,140 homeless households in England living in temporary accommodation, up 12 per cent on last year (Photo: Chris Harris/Getty)
Housing
Burnham claims No 10 North would oversee “the biggest council house-building programme” since WW2.
Public control
He has called for “greater public control” of water and energy companies.
Caption: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – 2025/09/01: Thames Water workers stand next to a van at a street repair site in Central London as reports state that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has called for a “market-based solution” for the troubled water company while ministers are preparing for all possibilities, including special administration. (Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM OCTOBER 15: The Department for Energy Security & Net Zero Sign is seen in Whitehall on October 15, 2024 in Whitehall, London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Peter Dazeley via Getty Images)
Net zero opportunity
He has also championed the push for net zero as a chance to reindustrialise.
Foreign affairs
Burnham’s policy agenda has, so far, been largely domestically focused.
But he has said Britain’s support for Ukraine “will not waver” and has spoken of forging closer ties with the EU.
Burnham has also backed further sanctions against Israeli figures involved in settler violence.
What about migration?
Caption: Andy Burnham speaks after being confirmed as the Labour Party’s new leader and the country’s next prime minister, during ‘Labour’s Special Conference’ in central London on July 17, 2026. (Photo by Henry Nicholls / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
Photographer: HENRY NICHOLLS
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Source: AFP
Burnham said during the Makerfield by-election that net migration into the UK needs to “fall further” than it has, and on Monday he voted in favour of asylum reforms aiming to cut small boat crossings and direct people to alternative “safe and legal routes”.
POLITICS
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The state pension age, currently set at 66, is already set to increase to help manage the costs of an ageing population, as rising life expectancy mean people can spend significantly longer in retirement.
It was due to go up gradually to 68 between 2044 and 2046. However, a report this week by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Government’s fiscal forecaster, said this timescale was expected to be brought forward by seven years, to 2037-2039.
The change would mean about five million people currently aged 49 to 55 would need to work for a year longer than they would have expected before qualifying for the state pension, unless they had sufficient private funds to retire on.
Steve Webb, a former pensions minister, told The i Paper it was “not sustainable” to hold the retirement age “regardless” of the debate over the triple lock policy and its strain on the public finances.
Webb, who was a Liberal Democrat minister in the Coalitoin government with the Conservatives, was the architect of the triple lock. He is now a partner at consultancy LCP.
He said the Government’s pensions review, which was launched last yeat and is ongoing, could recommend setting a date for the state pension age to rise to 69.
The OBR’s forecasts expect the retirement age to rise to 69 in the 2070s.
‘Under-40s at risk’
But Webb said that workers under the age of 40, and “particularly the under-30s”, are “at risk” of the pension age hitting 70.
He said such a controversial change was likely to be “decades away” as no politician would want to take the “flak for raising the pension age to 70” when it remained a long way off in the future. “The outcome could indeed be precisely that, but we won’t know for sure for many years to come because no one wants to announce it,” Webb added.
The annual cost of the state pension is already about £150bn and is expected to rise from 5 per cent of GDP to 9 per cent over the next 50 years without a change of policy, according to the OBR.
Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, said that the rising expenditure – largely due to improvements in life expectancy – meant the Government “must do something” to bring costs down, otherwise it would need to “substantially pare back spending in other areas”.
He added that it would be “no surprise to see the state pension age eventually hit age 70 for today’s younger workers” and urged them to build up private pensions.
Abolishing the triple lock is often touted as an option for bringing spending on pensions under control. The OBR has estimated that doing so would reduce projected spending in 2076 from around 9 per cent of GDP under the current policy, to around 7 per cent.
High inflation has seen costs balloon to about £146bn a year, which is already equivalent to 5 per cent of GDP and more than double the amount spent on defence.
Privately, many Labour MPs have signalled that the mechanism should be ditched for reasons of generational fairness. They want pensioners to be protected in a more affordable and sustainable way that means younger workers are not having to foot a growing bill for older generation.
But moving away from the triple lock is seen as politically toxic as no politician wants to isolate the pensioner vote.
Webb said the retirement age must rise “regardless” of what happens to the triple lock. He pointed out that the state pension age for men was first set at 65 in the 1920s, meaning that even after the scheduled increase to 67 between 2026 and 2028, it will “only have risen by two years in over a century”.
He added: “When you think of everything that has changed over that period, it’s clearly not sustainable to hold state pension ages.”
Selby agreed, saying: “Regardless of what happens to the triple lock – and it will eventually have to be scrapped – further and possibly faster state pension age increases are all-but-inevitable; the only real question is when?”
The OBR projected that work participation among those aged 70 and older is set to rise from around 7 per cent to nearly 10 per cent over the next 30 years, largely driven by increases in life expectancy and planned rises in the state pension age. But Webb warned that forcing retirees to work until the age of 70 should be a “last resort”.
‘Use wealth tax to support ageing society’
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer told reporters that it would be for incoming prime minister Andy Burnham to decide whether to keep the triple lock after the next election, due in 2029 at the latest. So far, there is little consensus among Labour MPs over whether the increase to 68 should be fast-tracked.
Labour MP Graeme Downine said it “probably should rise” but that the triple lock should also be addressed. He called for an “open and honest discussion with the public”, where ministers are frank about what the retirement age should be and the support working-age people should come to expect.
“If we’re going to talk about what the right age is to receive the state pension, then we should also talk about what that pension is and make sure it is sustainable and affordable and meaningfully tackling pensioner poverty,” he said.
“Without a conversation alongside about the triple lock we are not confronting these issues, we are just putting them off to another day which will make it all the more difficult when we do have to confront it,” he added.
But Jon Trickett, a left-wing Labour MP and member of the Socialist Campaign Group, said it was not “right” to increase the state pension age, and called for a wealth tax to raise money to support an ageing society.
He pointed out that healthy life expectancy in England has fallen over the last decade to an average of 60.9 years for men and 61.3 years for women, according to the Office for National Statistics, with those in the most deprived areas spending far fewer years in good health.
“In these circumstances, how can it be right to ask people to work until they are even older?” Trickett asked.
A HM Treasury spokesperson said: “In July 2025 we announced the launch of the third review of the state pension age, which is required by legislation.
“This review remains ongoing, and we would not pre-empt its outcome.”