UK faces ‘debt timebomb’ from ageing population
Since Age UK drew attention to the challenges facing the rural elderly last year I keep falling over stories like this which demonstrate what an insightful focus on the challenges facing the rural elderly that organisation has championed. Whilst covering all elderly, this worrying article makes us think about the manifest problems facing those growing old in rural England. It tells us:
Britain’s ageing population has created a “debt timebomb” that can only be defused through a combination of significant spending cuts, faster increases in the state pension age and ending universal free healthcare, according to a respected think-tank.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) warned that the Government would need to slash public spending by a quarter in order to get Britain’s debt mountain down to sustainable levels.
In a set of radical proposals, the IEA called on the Government to end “unhelpful” policies such as the “triple lock guarantee” that ensures the state pension increases by the higher of inflation, average earnings or a minimum of 2.5pc every year.
It also said charging for some NHS services would help to reduce demand.
The IEA calculated that Government spending cuts equivalent to 9.6pc of GDP – or £168bn per year in today’s money – were needed to reduce Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio to 20pc by 2063. This is equivalent to cutting the health, welfare and pensions budgets in half, or overall spending by a quarter.