Labour plans to retain the triple lock and pensioner benefits as well as offer help to Waspi women and expats, according to its draft leaked manifesto.
Labour has promised to guarantee the state pension triple lock throughout the next Parliament, meaning it will rise by the highest of 2.5 per cent, inflation or earnings.
The Conservatives have yet to reveal their manifesto but the Liberal Democrats also promise to keep the triple lock.
Labour has also promised to guarantee the Winter Fuel Allowance, currently worth between £100 and £300 for people born on or before 5 May 1953, and free bus passes for older people.
It has also pledged to protect the pensions of the UK citizens who live abroad but who have had their state pension frozen because there is no reciprocal agreements in place with their host country.
At the moment the majority of pensioners living in the UK have their pensions annually indexed or uprated according to the British inflation rate but this is only the case for ex-pat pensioners living in certain countries - such as the US, all European Union countries, Barbados, Bermuda and Israel.
The draft Labour manifesto also promised to extend pension credit to women born in the in 1950s - many of whom have banded together as the Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) - who it claimed have had their state pension age changed without fair notification and leaving many of them in poverty.
It said: “These women deserve both recognition for the injustice they have suffered and some kind of compensation for their losses."
Richard Harrington, the pensions minister, has so far refused to budge on the Waspi issue.
Speaking last year, he said: “We have looked at every alternative and they are either unaffordable or not legal at the moment."
Nathan Long, senior pensions analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Labour are making pensions a key battleground in the election.
“Saving for retirement is somewhat absent, meaning we are unsure as to what the plans are for workplace pensions and whether crucially, the self-employed will be included in the auto-enrolment program that ensures people are automatically joined to a pension plan.
"We have already seen plans to tax those earning over £80,000 which could easily see a further limiting to tax relief for those impacted.”
Tom Selby, senior policy analyst at AJ Bell, added: "Promises to retain the state pension triple-lock are naked electioneering aimed squarely at the so-called 'grey vote'.
"Two separate reports have suggested the policy be scrapped on cost grounds, while it is also hard to justify paying pensioners a bigger average annual increase than workers. We need more long-term thinking when it comes to setting pensions policy.”
stephanie.hawthorne@ft.com
