I’ve easily found £30bn of savings, so why can’t the government do this?

It’s the triple lock that needs to be reformed. I read an I interesting article from Fidelity several weeks ago. It showed how the three measures used to calculate the triple
lock have had a ratchet effect which has resulted in the state pension rising far above any of the three individual measures.

Myself and many many others have or will have worked their entire lives and made calculations for retirement upon certain promises between a government and themselves. I’m one of the people you’d like to impact as I will have two private pensions alongside an ISA and then the state will be ontop. I’ve worked out how much income I’d like upon retirement based upon this and am balancing my spending and investing appropriately. Agree with the sentiment from some, I’m fed up of carrying the feckless and lazy. Tax thresholds haven’t changed in years and won’t. There is talk of raising income tax by 1 or 2p in the pound at the November budget. I’ve never claimed any sort of benefit, handout or whatever in my life. I’ve never (thankfully) used the nhs outside of a few gp appointments. I started out in all sorts of things such as postman, dustman, warehouse work and I’ve worked my way up to sit where I am now in a director level position. I’ve so far paid in 30 odd years of NI. Tweak the state pension such as doing something with the triple lock but you can do one as far as I’m concerned in regard for punishing me for working my behind off and paying into the system to then have it given to someone more ‘worthy’.

@OwnGravityField of all the things that could be cut, why would you focus on this?

There really is a problem this year with people who have just discovered ChatGPT and now think that they are bright 🙄😂

Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

And attendance allowance. My millionaire MIL who worked five years her whole life gets nearly £450 pm she doesn’t need (and doesn’t spend!)

There needs to be an increase in tax for billionaires, not pensioners who have earned. Billionaires often make money that will never be spent, that needs more contribution back to the people.
also, garnishing fuel companies … that’ll plug a huge hole with little administration

I don’t mind OP as long as I can have the £210,000 back that I’ve contributed in National Insurance alone back over the course of my long working life. I’ve barely had to use the NHS and children were privately educated, so apart from policing -I’ve had nothing back from my £210,000 input into NI. So yes, I’ll have that back please and forgo my state pension. 🙄

I'll guess Op is far away from pension age or has enough in their pension to reckon it won't effect them.
People always want other people to pay.

Other than don't trust Chat GPT, otherwise we might as well do away with the government and just ask AI to make all the decisions, there are so many pitfalls - I love the idea that the admin will be negligible for a start off. Have you ever heard of a government scheme that's not got costly admin?
Let's see, there's about £13 million people of pensionable age. They'll need to send them all a letter or two about it. Let's say each letter costs them 20p to produce and post and they send two. That's 5 million already.
And that's without the work collating people's info, working out how much etc.

Then what about people who have invested their money in other things rather than pensions? Do they get away with that? You'll see people withdrawing lump sums from their pensions and investing them elsewhere.
What about lump sum pensions? I could have joined a scheme that pays a lump sum for me to invest instead of getting an amount each year.

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.
Sure that's going to restore trust. Hey, you pensioners. You know how you've saved for your pension and been told you can trust it? Now you can't. The younger generation are taking that from you.

national renewal: homes, NHS, lower childcare costs, investment in schools, training, the police force. It could be used to help families who are struggling with mortgage costs.
Families struggling with mortgage costs? Don't forget that those "rich" pensioners also struggled - through interest rates of 17% at points. I think you have just given away why you want their money though.

re-directing spending from low-value consumption (luxuries, imports) to investment (homes, healthcare, infrastructure) improves living standards
Positive effect on the bond markets, sterling value, credit-rating agencies, inflation trends, reduction in government debt - the UK really really needs this right now
Whose living standards are you improving? Not the pensioners...
I can't see it having a positive effect on the bond market either as people withdraw from pensions (who use the bond market) and pensioners who have to withdraw their bonds too.

This is silly enough for me to wonder if the OP is trying to test the waters for a political party.
Although if it was no doubt they'd have got a few barbs in about how everything was really the fault of all the other parties.

You are using ChatGPT to do fiscal calulations?

Are you thinkin of becoming chancellor by any chance?

You won't be paying tax on your state pension at all. It's below the tax limit. You will pay tax on anything above that that you receive via private pensions or interest.

Why the fuck am I going to work every day, flogging my log, so other people can sit at home getting free money now, and knowing they’re going to get free money when they “retire” (except they haven’t worked to retire in the first place). Piss off! I am SICK of carrying other people and paying for their luxuries (holidays). If I had my way they’d all be on bloody food vouchers. I have had enough.

I agree. I don’t think millionaires should get state benefits of which the state pension is the most expensive

it has a point but also pensioners are treated as sacred cows here so no doubt they’ll have a fit. And they are one of the most active voting demographic.

there is an issue with the fact that wealthiest probably paid most into the government coffers throughout their life so they may object that it’s not fair that they were paying most and are again getting back least.

@OwnGravityField because it’s a very fine balancing act between what can work and what people will actually vote for - the express and mail and telegraph etc would damn well make sure that it was known you were trying to kill pensioners!! The UK electoral system too doesn’t help - decisions are not made always on the national good because they would be very unpopular and mean 50% of Britains rather dim population would just say ‘I’m not having that, let’s give the others go’ - I’m sure plenty of us now think that rejoining the EU or at least the EEA would add a ton to GDP and get things moving economically without much pain - but again you would then have the press doing the ‘going against democracy’ bullshit - because for the right wing press the decision suited their agenda- it’s not as if they mention that the small boat issue exploded exponentially post Brexit etc - a great deal of over60s do indeed get their info purely from the BBC and right wing press and they vote!! ( and I’m 63 so well aware of how many in my age group don’t think sideways including reasonably intelligent people on paper).- and yes like you OP I can see multiple ways of making the system work better but wouldn’t be popular, including with many mumsnetters on both sides of the political spectrum

I am wondering, would a government or armed forces pension be considered a private pension under this brave new world order or exempt?

or what if they had a SP from an EU or other country as well as the UK SP?

Milliionaires are not why this country is in trouble! We have a massive client of state of people just being given money and the sums are eyewatering. The SP is about the only cash benefit that is universal. The idea that it should be taken from those who have contributed the most to funnel yet more money to those who are already draining resource from the country, is absolutely extraordinary.

A better way of saving money would be to bring back the fair rent register which would fix a fair rent on a rental property. Would save millions Housing benefits and would also benefit working people. If it forces some landlords to sell their properties then house prices would reduce to allow more people to buy their own property, ideally giving existing tenants first dibs

You say in the OP “households” that have more than £12k a year from private pensions, but how would you propose to define a household? If you have a couple, do they share a single allowance and both lose their SP if they go over the £12k jointly? Do they get individual allowances, in which case benefit from double the SP income than equivalent single-person households, alongside their private pensions? What about if one person in the household dies, would the SP be reinstated for the surviving person if their private pension income subsequently fell below the £12k? How about older people who benefit financially from living with family in their retirement, would wider household income be factored in?

You really think £12k private is a large pension? You are an idiot.

This explains SO clearly why chat GPT cannot be trusted OP. Have you ever researched AI hallucinations? You should.

I work in this area and I can absolutely assure you that Chat GPT is 100% inaccurate in mush of what it reported to you, (what evidence sources did it give you? Have you checked them out?) and that your inputs bias, even if unintended and unrecognised by you, have additionally influenced its analysis. It is well known that it broadly answers in the positive to warm you to it :).

It has also not considered adequately the wider factors which would need to be considered (I can off my head think of another five or six).

You should research more on how to strengthen and make robust responses and how you can verify them. Understand more the limitations of it as a tool - at the moment it’s rather like you talking as gospel a random persons opinion on it and then shouting to the world this is 100% fact. And you wouldn’t do that, would you? Would you?…

@kittywittyandpretty
It’s a theory- Social Contract Theory that describes the written and unwritten social agreements between the rulers and the ruled, the government and the citizens.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcontract

I'd just cash in my private pension to bring me under the threshold and give the money to the children for house deposits.

They can however buy an expensive house in catchment for a top school and have a great free state education for their kids.

They can also use the NHS, free at point of use.

Arguably they could pay for private for both and save the taxpayer a packet. Many choose not to.
Where is the cutoff proposed?

As a principle it’s not a bad one tbh. Pension credit is pretty much the same amount as SP, but people still happily pay their NI in order to get the SP. Losing half is too much though given that PPs tend to being people above the tax threshold - so they’d lose much more than half.

Politically it would be disastrous… What if the current SP was kept, but pension credit top up was tied to the triple lock? Far more pensioners are now claiming pension credit thanks to removing the winter fuel allowance, those with no other income would get the current rate ?£12k a year plus pension credit which would increase each year using the triple lock mechanism. It’s a fiscal drag policy so would take a bit longer but relatively straightforward administratively.

Maths isn’t my strong point but you are saying pensioners receiving over £24k (combination of SP and private pension) would be taxed at 20% and also lose 50% from SP? So anyone receiving £24k - £36k would be ‘taxed’ at 70% on that band?

Ridiculous. It wouldn’t be worth trying to save a private pension of over £12k pa.