by LAURA BENJAMIN

All pensioners should receive a minimum income of £90 a week on top of housing expenses, according to Hendon MP Andrew Dismore.

The Government's social security committee, of which Mr Dismore is a member, has recommended that the Government takes action to end pensioner poverty.

'We want pensioners to get a decent wage to live on and to be able to keep some of their savings,' said Mr Dismore. 'We have set out a number of suggestions to achieve this and if these don't work we may have to go back and look at restoring the link of pensions to earnings ,, although not everyone benefits from that.'

The committee's report was written after consultation with the West Hendon African Caribbean Association, Barnet Asian Old People's Association and the Barnet Senior Citizens Forum.

'During our visit to Barnet the pensioners from ethnic groups were concerned that the financial burden of looking after the older generation of ethnic pensioners will inhibit that generation's ability to make provision for its own old age, thus creating an avoidable cycle of poverty,' said the committee's report.

Stan Davison, chairman of the Barnet Senior Citizens Forum, said: 'We want pensions to be calculated on average earnings, which stopped 20 years ago. If that had continued then we would be £30 more better off than we are now.'

Key facts

From April this year, a single pensioner receives £67.50 per week and a couple £107.90 at a total annual cost of £37.7billion

The report recommends encouraging pensioners to claim benefits; helping the self-employed to organise a second pension scheme, and regular research into pensioner poverty

In 1997-8, three quarters of single pensioners and nine out of ten couples had other income apart from their state pensioners