UK Politics General Discussion

[Dave]

I predict that the state pension will become a benefit claim and if you have worked and paid into a private pension you'll be told you don't need the state one you've paid into for 50 years. Might aswel not work basically kids, we'll all be equal.

Our politics is grossly in favour of pensioners because older people vote in greater numbers so almost certain to never happen.

Pensions have increased at a greater rate than wages (which is fine) and continues to do so.

 

[Osaka12]

Our politics is grossly in favour of pensioners because older people vote in greater numbers so almost certain to never happen.

Pensions have increased at a greater rate than wages (which is fine) and continues to do so.

I'm 39, I'll let you know in 30 years.

 

[Dave]

I'm 39, I'll let you know in 30 years.

I could wait for that, or we can just look at the entire history of western politics.

 

[Osaka12]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not waiting for state handouts, I realised a long time ago I needed to invest in my future. But I will campaign for my fair share of what I've paid into.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

I predict that the state pension will become a benefit claim and if you have worked and paid into a private pension you'll be told you don't need the state one you've paid into for 50 years. Might aswel not work basically kids, we'll all be equal.

I hate to be the one to burst this particular bubble, but the State Pension is already a benefit. It is the single largest benefit expenditure on the DWP's books, costing significantly more than Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, and Disability benefits combined.

We need to dispel the myth that you have "paid into" a pension for 50 years. You haven't. There is no pot with your name on it sitting in the Bank of England, accruing interest.

The UK State Pension is an unfunded pay as you go scheme. The National Insurance contributions you paid 30 years ago didn't go into a savings account for you; they went immediately out of the door to pay for the pensions of the people who were retired 30 years ago (your parents and grandparents).

Your pension, when you get it, will be paid for by the taxes of the people working today (your children and grandchildren). It is an intergenerational contract, not a personal savings plan.

As for means-testing it against private pensions: political suicide. The grey vote is the most powerful demographic in British politics. Any party whio proposes effectively confiscating the State Pesion from those who have been prudent enough to save privately would be obliterated at the ballot box.

The incentive to work and save privately remains the same. The full new State Pension is currently £221.20 per week. If you want to live on more than £11.5k a year in your retirement, e.g, if you want to do more than just exist, you definitely still need to work and save into a private pot.

 

[Osaka12]

I hate to be the one to burst this particular bubble, but the State Pension is already a benefit. It is the single largest benefit expenditure on the DWP's books, costing significantly more than Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, and Disability benefits combined.

We need to dispel the myth that you have "paid into" a pension for 50 years. You haven't. There is no pot with your name on it sitting in the Bank of England, accruing interest.

The UK State Pension is an unfunded pay as you go scheme. The National Insurance contributions you paid 30 years ago didn't go into a savings account for you; they went immediately out of the door to pay for the pensions of the people who were retired 30 years ago (your parents and grandparents).

Your pension, when you get it, will be paid for by the taxes of the people working today (your children and grandchildren). It is an intergenerational contract, not a personal savings plan.

As for means-testing it against private pensions: political suicide. The grey vote is the most powerful demographic in British politics. Any party whio proposes effectively confiscating the State Pesion from those who have been prudent enough to save privately would be obliterated at the ballot box.

The incentive to work and save privately remains the same. The full new State Pension is currently £221.20 per week. If you want to live on more than £11.5k a year in your retirement, e.g, if you want to do more than just exist, you definitely still need to work and save into a private pothen

So why does everyone born before 1980 get final salary and state pensions and I don't?

 

[rob666]

So why does everyone born before 1980 get final salary and state pensions and I don't?

They don't.
A simple fact.
A large number of retired people born before 1980 have no salary tied pension at all.
Three million of them at the last count.
The figures are easy to research...just google it.

I know many people born before 1980 who have no final salary pension.
Many working for the state in long term employment have had no final salary pension since 2014.

Where exactly did you come across this misinformation?

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

So why does everyone born before 1980 get final salary and state pensions and I don't?

Not "everyone born before 1980" has a final salary pension. These were workplace benefits offered by private companies and the public sector, not handouts from the government.

They essentially disappeared from the private sector not because of a specific date, but because they became financially unsustainable. Companies realised they were effectively writing blank cheques for employees who were living decades longer than actuaries had predicted. When you combine increased life expectancy with changes to accounting standards, businesses closed these schemes to new members to stop themselves going bankrupt.

It wasn't a generational conspiracy. It was a correction of a financial model that was too generous to be sustainable. Private pensions have moved from Defined Benefit (guaranteed outcome) to Defined Contribution (you get out what you put in plus investment growth), shifting the risk from the employer to the employee.

You will get a State Pension, provided you have 35 qualifying years on your National Insurance record. It hasn't been abolished for those born after 1980.

The difference is not if you get it, but when. We are all living longer, so the state cannot afford to pay people to be retired for 30 years on the taxes of a shrinking workforce. Therefore, the age at which you can access it is being pushed back.

It is not that you won't get it, it is just that the goalposts are moving because the demographic maths of the country has changed.

 

[rob666]

To pick nits off a gooses' back...
You get a pension after ten qualifying years, a full one after thirty five.

Many older women (traditional housewives) only get a "full pension" through pension credit, and those with good savings get a pittance.

Then there are the people with zero additional provision, who cash in assets (houses, stocks and shares, gold) in their retirement.
Paying due tax on it all of course.

 

[Poisson]

As with most things financially, and in life in general, it is wise not to put all your eggs in one basket. A balanced approach combining assets, pensions, ISAs and shares in some quantity will be the wisest approach, subject to your financial situation.

 

[Blackrock]

Reform won’t deal with the legal backlog and the only way to deal with the large welfare bill is to reduce or get rid of the state pension which accounts for the majority of the bill. The majority of the welfare spend on working age people are spent on people in work, and I don’t think Farage is going to make employers increases wages so much that they can cut those….

Not defending Labour as they are not doing amazing (some of that is comms as the workers rights and renters rights bills (which Farage objected to) are really good). But even one term of Reform will guarantee privatisation of the NHS and tax cuts for rich people at a minimum.

The NHS is going to be privatised in parts at some point, the way we fund it at this moment in time isn’t sustainable in today’s world. Hardly any countries use our model. It’ll start with more up front payments, charges for missed appointments (which I entirely agree with).

I think personally we need to have a sensible conversation around it and people need to wrap their heads around the fact that it isn’t sustainable. We’re a country attached to a welfare/healthcare system that’s getting bigger and bigger every single year.

I always find it slightly ironic when doctors (who should be paid more) move to countries like Australia or the US that are part private so salaries will typically be higher. I think there’d probably be a lot of support amongst doctors for a change in funding model if it meant they’d be paid more, no one obviously wants the US system so let’s look towards the French/German models.

Also they need to bring back Theresa Mays Dementia tax, it was entirely sensible.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

The NHS is going to be privatised in parts at some point, the way we fund it at this moment in time isn’t sustainable in today’s world. Hardly any countries use our model. It’ll start with more up front payments, charges for missed appointments (which I entirely agree with).

I think personally we need to have a sensible conversation around it and people need to wrap their heads around the fact that it isn’t sustainable. We’re a country attached to a welfare/healthcare system that’s getting bigger and bigger every single year.

I always find it slightly ironic when doctors (who should be paid more) move to countries like Australia or the US that are part private so salaries will typically be higher. I think there’d probably be a lot of support amongst doctors for a change in funding model if it meant they’d be paid more, no one obviously wants the US system so let’s look towards the French/German models.

Also they need to bring back Theresa Mays Dementia tax, it was entirely sensible.

I hate to break it to you, but the NHS is already privatised in parts. It has been for decades.

Your GP is a private contractor. Your high street dentist is a private business. The building your hospital is in was likely built by a private consortium under PFI, and the cleaning, catering, and security are outsourced to private companies like OCS or Sodexo. A significant chunk of routine operations are already farmed out to private providers like Spire or Circle to clear waiting lists, paid for by the NHS. The privatisation you predict isn't a future event, it is the current operational reality.

The idea that "hardly any countries" use our model (funded by general taxation, free at the point of use) is factually incorrect. It is used in Italy, Spain, Portugal, New Zealand and across Scandinavia. These countries generally have better outcomes than us not because they have a magical insurance model, but because they have historically invested more capital per head and have more beds / doctors per capita.

Moving to a French or German social insurance model doesn't magically create money. It shifts the burden from Income Tax / NI to a dedicated hypothecated tax on employers and employees. It is still a tax, just with a different label and a significantly higher administrative burden to collect.

Charging for missed appointments is a populist soundbite that falls apart the moment you apply scrutiny. The administrative cost of issuing, chasing, and enforcing a £10 fine usually exceeds the value of the fine itself. You also risk penalising the most vulnerable, those with dementia, chaotic lives, or simply those let down by the NHS's own archaic letter based booking system.

The "Dementia Tax" wasn't sensible; it was a lottery based on biology.

If you develop cancer, the state pays for your care (chemo, radiotherapy, hospital stay) regardless of your assets. If you develop dementia, you are deemed to have a social care need rather than a medical one, and you can lose your house to pay for it. Theresa May's proposal didn't fix this inequity, it instead codified it. It shattered the basic risk pooling principle of the welfare state. We pay in so that we are protected from catastrophic costs, regardless of which specific organ fails us in old age.

Doctors aren't moving to Australia because of the funding model. They are moving because the pay is better, the hours are humane and they aren't being vilified by the press. You can achieve that in a tax funded system, you just have to choose to pay for it.

 

[Dave]

The NHS is going to be privatised in parts at some point, the way we fund it at this moment in time isn’t sustainable in today’s world. Hardly any countries use our model. It’ll start with more up front payments, charges for missed appointments (which I entirely agree with).

I think personally we need to have a sensible conversation around it and people need to wrap their heads around the fact that it isn’t sustainable. We’re a country attached to a welfare/healthcare system that’s getting bigger and bigger every single year.

I always find it slightly ironic when doctors (who should be paid more) move to countries like Australia or the US that are part private so salaries will typically be higher. I think there’d probably be a lot of support amongst doctors for a change in funding model if it meant they’d be paid more, no one obviously wants the US system so let’s look towards the French/German models.

Also they need to bring back Theresa Mays Dementia tax, it was entirely sensible.

I won’t go into all the details as the Goose has said a lot of what I would say but the funding methodology in most of Europe is just a product of decisions made post WW2. Some went with a hybrid social/ private model, others with fully social model (and the UK wasn’t the only one as alluded to above).

The NHS time and again comes out as one of the most financially efficient healthcare systems in the world. The issue is the UK population has a jekyll and Hyde mentality when it comes to taxation. They want the service levels of he Nordic countries with the tax burden of America, you can’t have both.

My concern with moving to the French/ German model is Reform/ Tories won’t put the huge legislative restriction on profit and operating practices that the French and Germans have done. But even if they do, it’s not like taxes will reduce so ultimately it will be a tax increase hidden behind a reform and then future premium increases will be the fault of the industry rather than the government.

As for the pay issue, doctors and health professionals don’t defend the NHS for its pay (or its T&C’s/ pension which are not as gold plated as some on social media pretend), we just feel it’s the best foundation for a healthcare system and we would be fools to abandon it.

To expand though, adding upfront payments to the health system just pushes more people into the emergency care sector. People with no spare cash will avoid going to the doctor, until so unwell they go to A&E, this both adds pressure to the emergency system and increases cost as treating later nearly always costs more than earlier intervention: