OXFORD pensioners' champion Bill Jupp was part of a 1,000-strong rally that descended on Parliament yesterday calling for an increase in the basic state pension.

Campaigners are fighting for the link between earnings and the state pension, abolished by the Conservatives in 1980, to be restored with immediate effect.

Mr Jupp, a member of the Oxford branch of the Transport and General Workers Union Retired Members' Association, travelled by coach to London with fellow pensioners.

The main issue was the current state pension, which currently stands at £84.25 a week - one of the lowest in Europe.

Some members of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) dressed up as skeletons to emphasise the fact an average 500,000 pensioners died every year, meaning up to three million would die before any benefit from the restoration of the link between basic state pensions and average earnings kicked in.

Members of the NPC, which represents more than 1,000 pensioner groups across the country, want the Government to increase basic state pensions to £114 a week to address pensioner poverty.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Tackling pensioner poverty has been our first priority. Since 1997, initiatives such as Pension Credit have helped to lift more than two million pensioners out of absolute poverty and a million people out of relative poverty.

"Today, no pensioner should be living on less than £114 per week, compared to £69 per week 10 years ago."