State pension age should be hiked to 75, claims Conservative Party peer Lord Frost
State pension age will rise to 67 by 2028 then it will further increase to 68
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The state pension age must be hiked significantly to cut public spending, a Conservative Party peer has warned.
Lord Frost has reportedly called for the age people can claim the state pension to rise to 75.
Speaking at a party conference fringe meeting on the Future of Conservatism, the former Cabinet minister urged the Government to make cuts to public spending and taxes and go for growth, including by making changes to the state pension.
According to the Daily Mail, 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].
State pension age needs to be reached in order to get the state pension
PA
“That seems to me the best way of getting out of it in the medium term.”
When asked whether he thought it should rise to 70 years old, Lord Frost replied: “75, it’s quite a lot higher.”
He continued: “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.
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“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.”
The state pension age has been rising in recent years, previously standing at 60 for women and 65 for men.
It increased to 65 for women and the age people can get the state pension has since reached 66 for both men and women.
A phased increase from 66 to 67 will take place between 2026 and 2028.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
The current legislated pathway is for the state pension age to rise to 68 between 2044 and 2046.
The Government plans to have a further review within two years of the next Parliament to consider any changes to the timetable for the increase to age 68.
A timetable of the state pension age changes has been published by the Government, and people can also check when they are currently due to reach state pension age online via the "Check your state pension age" tool.
Users should note though that as the state pension age is regularly reviewed, the results of this service may change.