TODAY’S centenary of the UK State pension should be used to restore the link with earnings, campaigners in Liverpool said last night.

A hundred years ago today the first pensioners went to the Post Office to collect a state pension of up to five shillings a week – £19.30 in current money.

In 1909 half a million people got a pension, now there are over 12m.

From April the basic state pension will go up by 5%, from £90.70 to £95.25, but campaigners want the link between increases in earnings and pensions restored.

The TUC said people would still receive a reasonable increase in their pensions even if price inflation was close to zero if the link, abolished in 1980, was restored.

Ministers have pledged to restore the link between pensions and earnings, but the TUC said it should happen sooner than the planned date of 2012.

Cllr Paul Twigger, chief whip in Liverpool Council’s Liberal Democrat administration, who works as a field officer for Age Concern, said: “The State pension is probably the most important thing people have for their latter years. It’s great we have the State pension, and it’s great that it’s reached its 100th birthday.

“However, it needs to be radically revitalised and the link with earnings should be restored now. A lot of people rely solely on the state pension and really struggle.”

The Old Age Pensions Act 1908 created a means-tested State pension of up to five shillings a week for some of the poorest pensioners aged 70 and above.