Taxpayers will be spending more on old-age pensions in two years’ time than on education, defence and policing combined, it was claimed tonight.
The cost of the state pension has already risen to £110billion – up £6billion in a year, figures show.
The Government has said it will reach £124billion in the current financial year and is expected to stand at £135billion by 2025.
That would mean more public money spent on the state pension than on the combined day-to-day budgets of the Department for Education (estimated at £84.9billion in 2024-25), Home Office (£15.5billion) and Ministry of Defence (£32.8billion).
A government source told The Times: ‘That’s the cost that comes with protecting the old. They can’t get jobs, most people can, for many it’s their only sole source of income.’
Taxpayers will be spending more on old-age pensions in two years’ time than on education, defence and policing combined, it was claimed tonight (stock image)
The cost of pensions is ballooning partly as a result of the ageing population, with the number eligible for a state pension rising by 130,000 last year to reach 12.6million.
But it has also soared in recent years thanks to the Tories’ ‘triple lock’ pledge, which ensures that retired people’s incomes increase each year in line with either inflation, average wages or 2.5 per cent – whichever is higher.
This year pensions increased by 10.1 per cent as a result of sharply rising prices.
Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb warned NHS and social care spending will also have to increase as there are more elderly people to be looked after.
He said: ‘Pensioners are a protected group electorally, so the state pension gets protected.
‘The NHS is a kind of national religion and is protected. And therefore everything else gets squeezed. The time will come when none of those things can be squeezed any more, and that’s when the crunch really comes.’
The triple lock on state pensions was suspended for 2022 to 2023 as wages bouncing back from Covid would have distorted the figures.
It was reinstated for the current financial year, taking the full weekly state pension to £203.85, but a growing number of voices are calling for it to be scrapped as it becomes increasingly unaffordable.
Former Tory leader Lord Hague and the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies have both said it is not sustainable.
Former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb (pictured) warned NHS and social care spending will also have to increase
