Osborne plans rise in retirement age to 66
Shadow Chancellor finds £130bn savings in pensions bill and pledges to restore link with earnings in 2012
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People would be forced to work longer before qualifying for the basic state pension under a Tory government to shave £130bn off the deficit in the public finances.
George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, will announce today that the Tories would raise the state retirement age to 66 in 2016. Labour's policy is to set the retirement age at 66 in 2026, at 67 in 2036 and at 68 in 2046.
The good news for pensioners in the Tory plan is that the money saved would allow a Cameron government to stick to Labour's plan to link the basic pension to earnings from 2012. At present, it rises annually in line with inflation, which goes up by less than earnings.
The proposal to restore the link, broken by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, was in jeopardy because of a public deficit due to reach £175bn this year. But the Tories have decided to ask people to work longer instead of delaying the higher annual rises in the state pension.
Outlining how he would fill the black hole in the public finances, Mr Osborne will tell the Tory conference: "Our aim will be to bring forward the date when the pension age rises. We will ensure that no increase will happen until the second half of the next decade – in the parliament after next. No one who is a pensioner today, or approaching retirement soon, will be affected. But this is how we can afford increasing the basic state pension for all."
The women's pension age, currently 60, will already start to rise by one year every two years from 2010 so that it becomes the same as for men, who qualify for the state pension at 65.
The Tories estimate that asking people to work an extra year would save taxpayers £13bn a year, so bringing forward Labour's timetable by 10 years should save at least £130bn. They argue that life expectancy has increased since the Turner report and that many people want to work past the retirement age. A record 11 per cent of men over 65 are still in work today.
Yesterday Mr Osborne announced that new businesses would get a "national insurance holiday" for the first 10 workers they hire for the first two years of a Tory government. He said the move would create about 60,000 jobs.
He told the Manchester conference: "As well as helping more unemployed people more quickly with our work programme, we also need businesses to create new jobs for them. So we have a bold plan to abolish the tax on jobs created by new businesses for the first two years of a Conservative government."
Employers pay 12.8 per cent of the salary of employees in national insurance. The proposed relief would apply up to the upper earnings limit of about £44,000 a year, saving a small firm with 10 workers earning £25,000 a year up to £25,000 annually. Mr Osborne will spell out how the £250m plan will be funded in his keynote speech today.
David Cameron told the conference he would not adopt a "safety first" approach in the run-up to the general election and wanted to win "a strong and positive mandate" from the voters for public spending cuts. "It is the deficit and not dealing with it that is the most threatening thing to our public services and those who rely on them most," he said.
A poll by ORB for the BBC's Newsnight programme found that 64 per cent of those who intend to support the Tories will do so mainly as a vote against Gordon Brown and Labour's record.
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Comments
Firstly, quite frankly, increasing the rate of National Insurance is a much better idea than increasing age of pension.
Secondly, what do we mean by working at old age? Does it mean full-time or part-time and how many hours it is?
I don’t think that we can generalize working ability (also different working condition) as the same for everyone.
Finally, this policy may cause obstacle for younger generation getting to work, etc.
Bring this gravy train on a a par with the way the private sector has to fund its pensions and you will become tangible!!!
And I'm not pillorying that reaction - given that we are where we are, thisanthat's and tonyexeter's anger and resentment are reasonable and understandable. When private pension schemes are being wound down left right and centre, and closed to new employees, it's hardly surprising that people working in the private sector look across at what seem to be the favoured ones in national and local government employment and say "Hang on, where's the equity in this - if there's a a financial crisis and a draconian squeeze in consequence, everyone should be sharing the pain".
Human nature being what it is, the people who are victims of a situation not infrequently go for each other more than they go for the people that created it. Back in the Roman Empire, someone described the political equivalent as "divide et impera" - divide and rule!
Realistically, retirement and pension provision in the public and private sectors will have become more equitable, both in fairness and from political necessity. But it IS worth keeping a weather eye to see just how far the mandarins at the very top of the civil service, and the chief executives and heads of departments in local government share the pain. And the directors in private industry and commerce. And, of course, the bankers. Not to mention the MPs, who will doubtless experience a pay freeze but whose expenses may remain more "elastic" than those of the rest of us.
And when the whinny of special pleading is heard in the land, a dollop of public anger, with public and private sector employees uniting in common cause against the pleaders, wouldn't go amiss.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, there are 11.1 million mortgages in the UK, with loans worth over £1.2 trillion. That is £1,200,000,000,000. For every 0.5% reduction in interest rates, borrowers save £6,000,000,000 in interest. That is £6 billion saved in interest payments per 0.5% change in rates. It would be far more equitable to take that saving (or part of it) as tax from those who are benefitting from artificially low rates of interest, rather than steal a year's pension even though it is a pittance from those who probably really need it (where are the jobs for 65 year-olds now?); have paid contributions for it; have planned for it; and are probably already paying for the financial mess disproportionately because their savings income is reduced. The prudent, as usual, end up paying once, twice, and many times over.
Your argument that we're all rich is ludicrous, as is your premise that all public sector workers are saints struggling along on poor salaries for the sake of the country, the only light at the end of the tunnel being the pension! Rubbish! A lot are jobsworths who have a nice cushy time of it....no redundancies and quite a few - police, senior staff, teachers, etc on extremely good wages!
Such employees can also often take early retirement - on a full pension of course that is funded by employee contributions AND the state! If you guys totally funded your pensions you'd be lucky to have the money to buy a loaf of bread a week! So a litle more thought perhaps chaps?
My ex is a well-paid teacher who with 5 year experience earned more than me with 20 years experience......I'm not complaining, I wouldn't wish to teach, just pointing out that your view of the world of work is somewhat distorted by your rightful dislike of the financial sector.
Why did I stay where I was? Because I enjoyed my work, I love Yorkshire, my kids were happy in the schools here and I had good friends at work. I sure as hell didn't work for the money! So sadly your guess about my profession AND my reason for working in the private sector are both totally wrong, so you'll just have to fall back on your prejudices to argue with me I guess!
Surely British people should be fed up with this crap.
Not much of a choice in British democracy? Is there.
Who can spot the diffrence?
Typical Tory arrogance. Hate the lot of 'em. Oh for a serious Political contender. It looks like out of the frying pan and into the fire if this lot get back in power.
How can anyone with a brain vote for this labour scum,liberal scum,or tory scum is an absolute perplexity to me.
And now this latest goon on the scene announces a rise in the state pittance age.
Enough angst has been provided across the various newspapers blogs,that it does not require me to add to it except for this-
I shall now be contacting other fifty year olds with a view to taking a class action in the european court citing breach of contract etc should this fools idea reach statute.
Enough is enough of being defrauded,thieved from,and exploited.
No mention of having a go at the banksters eh cameron.
Oh! but you are going to ringfence foreign aid though.
Oh! but you are very concerned about inheritance tax,are you not
Can't have your multi-millionaire associates,and friends paying too much tax can you.
Same old tories-nothing more than a self help group for asset strippers,and the rich.
As much the same verminous scum as new Labour-but worse in some ways.
"no wonder the french think the UK is a second rate country"
I have to take issue,and disagree with that idea.
The UK is not second rate....it is a fourth rate shit-pit.
"no wonder the french think the UK is a second rate country"
I have to take issue,and disagree with that idea.
The UK is not second rate....it is a fourth rate shit-pit.
Oil has meandered near the $70 a barrel level for months as traders struggle to gauge how strongly the U.S. economy will recover.
He ought to have based his speech after this . All would have wondered as to his updates news and listen. Now NO.
What do China, India, Brazil, Russia, France and Germany have in common? These countries most often can?t agree on anything. But they are united in one strange?and ominous?way. They blame the United States for wrecking the global economy. And they think the dollar is the wrecking ball. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered the replacement of the US dollar by the euro in calculating the value of the country's Oil Stabilisation Fund (OSF).
You see everyone is looking at the free ride. Obama has the dollars going to the forest as the Middle East dumps the $ and, oh well it is a long story, but I loved the speech of the.. A Tory government would freeze the pay of any public sector worker earning over £18,000 for one year, George Osborne has announced.
Osborne is unhappy about the Government's announcement on public sector pay. Damn (transitive verb in Christian belief, to condemn somebody to hell or to eternal punishment) it who is happy?
The shadow chancellor's announcement, which will not apply to the military, is a tougher measure than the Government's, which only bans pay rises for high earning civil servants.
"What the Government announced yesterday will not be enough. It covers less than a fifth of the public sector workforce," Mr Osborne said. Conservatives at 12.noon and the speaker George Osborne "Nor of course would anyone want to include those risking their lives for this country in Afghanistan - we owe them so much more."
"I have given you a fair warning."
I had a good laugh believe me. He talks of change. Why all want to change? He said my sons going to etc. Am I interested in his kids?
No. It is not usage of long words break the handwriting of the short hand ones to catch up with the speed and then we have fat instead of fart.
It is called KISS no not smooching it is Keep It Simple Stupid.
Have you heard Abraham Lincoln? He was the speaker of all the times and I love his speeches he is great.
I was watching with the greatest interred (to bury the remains of a corpse in a grave or tomb) eyes on LONDON - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has continued the tradition of adding the ?oomph? factor in his government. Nicolas Sarkozy (53) knows that his wife, model and singer Carla Bruni, can be an exhibitionist and he doesn't mind in the least.
Call what you want they have the muscle power "God is subtle but he is not malicious." - Albert Einstein "God is subtle but he is not malicious." - Albert Einstein I have to repeat this at times just in case he does not hear.
Now that is a technical TV. When you get engrossed in it. Speakers ? No.
Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of building a personal one.
-- Sigmund Freud
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla