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

Another ageist idea, stop all paid maternity/Costa leave when women choose to have babies and cancel funded nursery pay outs . Don't you like ageist 'solutions'?

And if you did and those were generating income when you retired, then you would not be entitled to a state pension under OP's plan.

Given the opportunity for financial abuse, I would ensure it was on a per-person basis, which might reduce the savings to 20bn. I do think it seems reasonable though.

Sadly, it’s not £15,000 every Five days, Or even every 50 days that’s not how compounded interest or pension funds work. I’d offer to talk you through it but I do charge about two grand to Advise, let me know if you’re keen. I’ll book you in an appointment.

That's £1,095,000 a year paid in interest?
So if you were earning 5% interest (which is generous) you would have over £20 million in the bank. This is a completely unrealistic amount for most people to accumulate for retirement.

Kind of a regressive policy.

Really rich people wouldn't give a shit as it wouldn't affect them.

Really poor people wouldn't give a shit as it wouldn't affect them.

People caught in the middle would lose out big time.

Just as they paid the pensions of the generation before them.

Taxpayers (which include a lot of pensioners btw) are paying the State pension, just as they paid for the pensions of the people who came before the current generation,

This is not a new thing.

Electorate - which skews older - would never wear it. Look at the furore over any changes suggested to IHT. In reality only 5% of estates pay it.

It would make me groan having just started receiving my state pension 6 years later than expected, to find that it will immediately be reduced because I have been carefully saving into a modest private pension my entire working life. Something needs to change, many aspects of the economy are unsustainable, but it’s not a simple calculation.

Because the state pension was sold on a lie - they paid into fuck all. We’re paying their pension.

Well pensioner income is already done for the purposes of tax.

Not so hot on disability discrimination either

I think I'm going to ask MNet to state the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010 to their website. They are hot on race, sex and sexual orientation. Rather less so on religion and age discrimination.

@Mumsnet any traction for this?

How did you figure that one out?

Say I'm a pensioner, and still living in the same very small one bedroom flat, because I bought it, you would say that automatically disqualifies me from any heating help?

can you explain the rationale behind this one, please?

@OwnGravityField when I retire i'll be paying 40% of my state pension back anyway. It's called income tax. I am due to get my state oension next year. The DWP had confirmed when and that I have a full entitlement vis working years and cintrubutions for it. That is sufficient for a legal challenge.

My mum will be repaying her winter fuel allowance via her tax return. She's 89. Same as MIL.

Yeah, pensioners vote.

And people who will in the not too distant future, and have calculated on getting the SP, vote.

Australia has a means tested state pension. It can work.

I am approaching retirement age. I can see a case of breaking the triple lock and linking pensions to earnings only- which would be fair. Means testing pensions would be a break to what I understand is the social contract, i.e. paying NI provides for a state pension. I see no reason why I should be penalised for saving hard into a private pension. A better focus would be on welfare, which is ballooning. I do not believe we are all getting sicker and are unable to work. There will also for sure be constraints in the budget on the mobility scheme which accounts for 1 in 5 new car sales.

The total cost of the NHS pension bill for taxpayers in the 2024-25 financial year was £17.2 billion

You have to decide what level of poverty you want pensioners to have. We currently allow children to live in poverty (Which is measured so you'll always have poverty as it's relative and not an absolute)
And whether you think anyone who doesn't ever contribute gets the same as someone who contributes.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/21/foreign-nationals-make-nearly-19m-benefits-claims/
There's a great chart there (put the . in after the .uk to read)
showing the %

The Motability scheme costs taxpayers costs taxpayers £2.8bn
and helps 860,000 people.

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money

Good for them.

After decades of scrimping and going without, husband working away from home for years because that’s where the work was, selling family home and helping kids to buy theirs, we’ve downsized to a flat. We finally have a bit of spare cash because we took responsibility for our finances and started planning for old age years ago. We’ll probably replace our two very old cars for one more efficient one to see us out and, perish the thought, take the odd holiday or two after years of Readycamp and Tesco voucher days out. How very dare we?

I’ll be receiving my state pension in a few years. The state pension I contributed to for donkey’s years.

That there are families in dire straits is nothing new and not the fault of people of our age. We’ve had more than our share of difficult times over the decades, as well as good periods, and cut our cloth accordingly. No free child care for oldest child and no state top ups. We have a bit of leeway now because of that.

Trying to stoke division between generations isn’t the answer to years of economic mismanagement by incompetent governments.

Here we go again ! I am in my 60s and am already having to wait till 66 and a half for my state pension. Shall we go further and make me and my cohort wait until we are 75? Mum got her pension at 60,My Stepdad at 65! My friend who is a few years younger, is having to wait to shes 67 FFS! There are plenty of people on PIP payments with dubious reasons .Shall we go after them next. YABVU here .Nothing annoys me more than saying its a "State Benefit" this is untrue as most of us get only what we have paid in and no more.The reason women got their pensions earlier in the past, is because it was seen that women were normally younger than their husbands by a few years.Therefore they would still be expected to "look after" their darling hubbies as they would be unable to cope otherwise!

@ILoveHolidaysAbroad you may want to do some checking. I’ve just googled it as I was curious and the Police pension, while still defined benefit, moved to career average from final salary a while ago. You didn’t say what you do, but the vast majority have now changed.

you are judging them by what you think they should want. Wanting more socilalisation is not the same as wanting to leave their familiar surroundings.

It IS now 'means tested'! As I posted earlier, you do not get it if your gross income is above £35k.

I didn’t argue they weren’t defined benefit or relatively generous. I said most were no longer final salary. Which is true as far as I’m aware.