The retirement age in the UK could rise to 70, the chairman of the Pensions Regulator is warning.

David Norgrove said a rise in the retirement age was inevitable as people lived longer and saved less.

Norgrove believes a report by Lord Turner four years ago, which recommended a rise in the state pension retirement age to 68 by 2044, is just the starting point.

At the moment men can claim their pension when they are 65, while women can claim at 60.

Speaking to the BBC this morning Norgrove said: “Given recent legislation is increasing the retirement age progressively to 68, I think it will end up higher than that.

“People are going to have to work longer. We as a nation are not going to save as much for retirement as we did in the past.”

Norgrove also warned that this would be “a real issue for the next 30 years” as the current generation of workers seemed unnecessarily intimidated by the prospect of saving for a pension.

He added: “The evidence is that people generally are frightened of saving for pensions.

“They think that pensions are very complicated.

“Actually, pensions in many ways are quite simple. Once you’ve made the initial decision you can let it run.”

Pensions Minister Angela Eagle countered the regulator’s predictions saying the government had no plans to raise the state pension age beyond 68.

She said: "We believe that we've covered the predictions of increased life expectancy adequately in the legislation and unless these statistics change we'll have periodic reviews, but it won't happen for another generation.

"I think it's important that people can predict accurately when the retirement age is if we're trying to persuade them to save into pensions, and that's what we're trying to do. So there is certainty there."

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