Break the cycle of dependency and get more into work

NEVER before in peacetime has the British state been so large or spent so much. To pay for this leviathan, the tax burden has risen to its highest level since the immediate post-war era.

- Leo McKinstry

Yet the Government remains strapped for cash.

The national debt continues to grow, while the annual fiscal deficit is colossal.

This financial year alone, the Treasury is expected to fork out £116billion just in interest payments, far more than the expenditure of most Whitehall departments.

This week, it was announced the Government was forced to borrow £27billion in December 2022, the highest total for that month since records began.

Weighed down by these vast liabilities, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has resorted to drastic measures, such as freezing income tax thresholds and putting up corporation tax.

But now he and his Treasury team are reported to be contemplating an even more significant measure in the long-term drive to balance the books.

According to news reports yesterday, Hunt’s March Budget may include a proposal to bring forward by 11 years the planned rise in the state pension age from 67 to 68.

By law, this rise is due to be imposed in 2046, but some in the Treasury want this change to happen much earlier, in 2035.

IT IS EASY to see why those in charge of the state coffers would welcome such a move, given that every increase in the pension age by a year is estimated to save the government annually £9billion.