‘Tory Party grandee and former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost has suggested that the state pension age in the UK be raised to 75 in a bid to reduce public spending. The pension age has already risen twice in the last five years.’
“Lord Frost yesterday (2nd October) suggested that the state pension age should be raised to 75 to shrink public spending and the state.
The Tory grandee, who was former PM Boris Johnson's Brexit negotiator, made the remarks at a party conference fringe meeting on the Future of Conservatism.
Urging ministers to make cuts to public spending and taxes and go for growth, he acknowledged that this would require making changes to the state pension.
He said: 'I do think that the honest truth is that the pension age is going to have to go up quite a long way to solve this problem [of reducing public expenditure].
'That seems to me the best way of getting out of it in the medium term.'
Asked whether it should go up to 70 years old, he said: '75, it's quite a lot higher.'
He added: 'People are much healthier than they used to be and I think it does need to go up. The big blocks of spending are health, pension and benefits. If you don't tackle those you're not really tackling anything.
'I do think you need to do something also like freezing – or coming close to freezing – the public sector health budget and finding a sort of socially just and accepted way that future spending needs to go to the private sector in some way otherwise it's just going to absorb sort of half of the budget before too long.'
‘Britain has had a Conservative government since 2010, and despite some initial cutbacks by the normally spendthrift party, the government’s outlay has ballooned in recent years. Its annual spending on services – which includes healthcare, welfare benefits, and pensions – soared to £784 billion ($953 billion) in 2022-23, from £713.1 billion ($866 billion) the previous year, according to government statistics.
Meanwhile, the UK’s national debt has risen from 75% of the country’s GDP in 2010 to 100.5% earlier this year.
Between 1948 and 2010, Britons could expect to draw a state pension at 60 for women and 65 for men. This was equalized to 65 for both sexes in 2018, and increased to 66 in 2020. A further increase to 67 is planned by 2028, and to 68 by 2046, although these dates are currently being reviewed and could be brought forward.
At present, there are 28 people aged over 65 for every 100 people of working age in the UK. However, this is to hit predicted to hit 36 per 100 by 2050.’
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