LONDON (Reuters) - Proposals to pay a basic state pension to everyone over the age of 75, regardless of their national insurance contributions, will help millions of women, unions and consumer groups said on Thursday.

The Pensions Commission, chaired by Adair Turner was set up three years ago to look at ways in which the state and private sector pensions system could be overhauled to address the nation's 57 billion-pound shortfall in retirement savings.

Turner said the state pension age should rise to at least 67 by 2050 but the basic state pension (BSP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) should be worth more. It should also be linked to earnings to remove the need for a means-tested pension credit.

Until these changes were fully implemented, Turner said the best way to reach the poorest pensioners was to make the BSP a universal pension for all residents aged over 75.

"That means the group with the largest incidence of pensioner poverty would be helped, many of whom are women with incomplete records," said Help the Aged spokesman Mervyn Kohler.

Under current rules, people accrue pension benefits through their national insurance contributions when they work. So, while everyone is entitled to a BSP, not everyone gets the full amount. Most who have lost out are women.

Michelle Lewis, pensions officer for the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said only around 16 percent of women currently received a full BSP, compared to between 80 and 90 percent of men, because they were usually the ones who had taken time away from work to raise a family.

That choice would instead entitle them to put more aside into a additional contributory scheme -- such as the planned National Pensions Savings Scheme -- that would pay a second pension income.

"This is a sophisticated document that is quite politically clever. He's not got rid of means testing but has proposed rolling it back. But even to win on that principle would be an important win," Kohler said.

The poorest pensioners had been helped to such an extent by these proposals that Kohler said Help the Aged was no longer so concerned by increasing the state retirement age.

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