Middle-class professionals should retire later than working-class people with manual jobs or poor health, Labour has suggested.

Alex Cunningham, shadow work and pensions minister, said that the state pension age should reflect people's health, income and the nature of their employment.

He said that the rising state pension age is "bad news" particularly for the "poorest in our country and those with ill health". In Mr Cunningham's Stockton North constituency men in the poorest wards live on average 16 years less than those in affluent wards.

He said: "The man in the poor ward may have started work at 16 and paid national insurance contributions throughout his adult life, and is more likely to have been in a physically demanding job and to have experienced ill health at a younger age.

"He may even be lucky to get the state pension for a handful of years before dying. Contrast that with a more affluent, professional person, who may not have started work until his 20s, who retired at 60 because he could afford to, and who then picked up his state pension when he was still fit and healthy enough to enjoy it."