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

[OwnGravityField]

How about this state pension adjustment proposal?

Currently, the state pension system pays the same to everyone, even to households with very large private pensions and investment incomes. Much of this money ends up funding luxuries.

The proposal is simple:
*full SP for everyone who depends on it (60% of pensioners)
*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself
*A quarter of pensioners would only have a modest reduction, and only the wealthiest 15% would no longer receive a publicly funded pension they do not need.

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

Savings? THIRTY BILLION A YEAR

That’s 1% of GDP

List of things that could improve?

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.

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.

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

I’d absolutely get up off my bum and vote for a party that proposed this. Would you?

@Frugalgal strange how he’s not blasting that from the rooftops - could it be that many who vote for him are only for cuts that wouldnt actually affect them one iota

Sorry, haven't rtft but the state pension doesn't pay the same to everyone. I don't get the full state pension because I paid into a company pension scheme. My husband gets less state pension than me because he paid into a company pension scheme for longer than I did.

And the thing is with proposals like this, is that if someone has been paying NI for 40 years and then you change the goal posts, surely they should get a refund? At least for the Pension element. Otherwise that's literally scamming people.

Wrong. I'm already paying 20% tax on my occupational pension.

When I get to 67, I'll return to a higher rate tax band and 40% (or whatever the rate is by then) will come off my entire state pension which I've paid extra NI for to buy back years.

I'm not complaining about that, I've paid tax since my teens at various rates.

Anyway, turkeys don't vote for Christmas and there's no way the suggestion in the OP would happen.

£15k interest in 5 days? You quite sure about that?

Technically the tax will come off your occupational pension - State pension is paid without tax being deducted (at least currently)

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

No. It's not. It cannot do basic arithmetic.

Yes, I am

On income. Not capital.

Same.

Ok. Most of them have. I was a teacher and took my pension early a few years ago. It wasn’t final salary. I don’t think most public sector ones are now.

Most public sector are still defined benefit, even though not final salary. And still generally far more generous than anything in the private sector.

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.

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

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.

@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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

Yeah, pensioners vote.

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

@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.

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?

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?