I have read plenty of badly informed articles, with some saying pensioners must keep the triple lock on the state retirement pension as the pension is still low, and from those saying the best test of a government’s serious intent to control the benefit bill is to ask them to remove the triple lock. They mainly assume the state pension is just a universal benefit and see it as a contest between the generous and the mean, between the high spenders and the controlled spenders. In practice is not that easy, as the pension is a contributory benefit or an entitlement earned by making NI contributions over a lifetime. People get different levels of pension based on their contributions, and the NI fund has to balance the tax in with the costs of the contributory benefits paid.
The reformers often have no idea what they are reforming. If for example a government said it would remove the option of a 2.5% increase in a year of low inflation and low wage growth, it would make little difference to the long term costs given the UK tendency to higher inflation. If it removed the wages link there would be savings so pensioners would be worse off, but it would also break the promise of what is a contributory scheme. If someone does not pay in for enough years they get a lower pension. If someone was paying in for a private pension they paid lower NI and get a lower state pension.
The National Insurance Act 1946 and National Assistance Act 1948 as amended by the Social Security Act 1992 and 1999 is the governing law. These lay out that all the National Insurance Contributions are paid into a fund. Under the 1992 Act Ministers have to set contribution rates of NI in relation to “the general level of earnings, the balance on the Fund and payments expected to be made from it in future.” The Government Actuary has to report on the impact of upratings on the fund. This government decided in its first budget to make a large increase in NI presumably taking into account the upratings it awarded.
The last accounts for the Fund to March 2025 show that the fund received £130.9 bn in NI contributions that year with other income of £7.3bn, primarily interest on investments. It paid out £143 bn leaving an annual deficit of £7bn. That left it with a balance for future payments of £79bn. It needs to keep a cash reserve to make payments on a continuous basis. The main contributory benefit paid out was the pension, at £136.9bn. There was a £5bn payment for contributory ESA and £200m for contributory JSA. The Fund also covered the modest costs of the Pensioner Christmas bonus. The next report may show the extra NI paid has created a surplus.
Of course a government with a majority could repeal all the legislation and say that NI is now simply a general tax not giving people any right to a State pension. They could then legislate to make the State pension a normal benefit, with means testing or still available to all regardless of income. It could become a universal benefit which you got whether you had worked and paid NI or not. Means testing it would be robbing people of the pension they have paid in for over any years of paying NI under the Contributory system.
The best way to control the costs of the pension without having to tear up the contributory principle, abolish the Fund and upset many pensioners is to increase the age at which you can draw the pension. Each year of increase in the age saves roughly 7% of the cost. The current pension age is 66. It will rise to 67 by 2028. Legislation says it will rise to 68 by 2046, but governments have announced their wish to bring this forward to 2039. It would make sense to legislate to get to 68 by say 2035 and to 69 by 2045 to increase the savings. People who still want to retire earlier than these later ages should have an option to pay additional NI contributions into the Fund in their later years in employment to buy themselves a full State pension at an earlier retirement age. Alternatively they could retire earlier with a lower State pension where they had private pension or savings so they did not need to claim top up benefits.
April 14, 2026
the whole system is a nonsense.
with people who never contribute ending up getting just as much money in other benefits.
people who are immigrants here late in life getting fully funded retirement having never contributed here.
decent people having their houses confiscated to pay for their care.
no incentive to save, as any declared savings will stop the thousand and one means tested benefits.
I disagree john, people who have paid into the system their entire life should be protected, and their pensions should increase.
people who have not paid into the system should have their pauouts cut.
restore the link between “doing the right thing ” and the money you get, incentivise doing the right thing.
save money by stopping paying for hotels for illegal immigrants, and so many other obvious financial savings measures.
April 14, 2026
Years caring for children under 12 qualify for pension years as do years doing more than 20 hours caring for older people. Plus if you have no assets you usually get the money in benefits instead of pension anyway.
April 14, 2026
THE DAILY T • PODCAST
‘He’s reversing the referendum!’: Another Starmer Brexit betrayal
Jacob Rees-Mogg traduces ‘weak’ PM over Labour plans to realign with EU regulation.
April 14, 2026
Housing slump – Treasury’s stamp duty income risks falling more than £3bn short as sales decline and prices fall.
Reeves’s Doom Loop agenda is speeding up as I expected!
April 14, 2026
Yes, the system is nonesense. I worked abroad for over 20years and paid class 4 NI contributions purely for a state pension. My colleague of similar age and employment status never paid. He received £8 per week more than me in Pension Credits. How does that work
April 14, 2026
Ian,
Understand your frustration!
Try contributing all your working life, then deciding to retire in Australia. The triple lock is extremely effective here. Pension locked at the initial payment level, never to increase. Locked within the minds of HMRC is that the rightfully deserved pension increase is actually paid and therefore they increase the tax code every year to make sure extra tax is paid on non-existent income. Online notifications, at least three as a minimum, that the pension is frozen, and the new tax code is incorrect, are ignored due to the locked minds of the HMRC staff!
April 14, 2026
Yes, it is a nonsense, starting with the ‘pay as you go’ nature of the system. Other countries ensure that money paid in is invested into a fund…. FOR PENSIONS. We have a tax system, and welfare system, that needs complete overhaul. We all know it but no government will do it. I fear we will only see common-sense when forced to by economic disaster.
April 14, 2026
There does seem to be a penalising of those who have always tried to do the right thing throughout their lives.
We are told we must save for our retirement years, but that seems to be made increasingly difficult with little left over to save after you’ve paid all your basic living costs, including travel to and from work.
April 14, 2026
It’s called “progressive” these days Michelle. Those with the good sense to take care of themselves (and their future selves) through prudence clearly have a duty (according to progressive thinking) to do the same for others who did not. Whilst I have no problem with looking after those who are really need our help, the sheer simplicity of ‘means testing’ rewards those who have decided to ‘spend now and worry about tomorrow when it comes’. Well it’s here now for a lot of people and if they didin’t care back then, why should I care now?
We’ve always lived within our means and saved for our future. We are most certainly not what I’d call “Rich” but then I’d be seriously worried if we weren’t worth more than a combined £16,000 (after years of hard work and long hours). That’s one point where Governent draws the line between ‘Have’ & ‘Have Not’ it seems – certainly as far as Universal Credit goes. There are other lines of course, many of them constrained by Fiscal Drag these days. I drive “Luxury” car – although it would not have been defined as so a few years ago – simply because list prices have risen. I pay income tax on my Pension, simply because allowances have been frozen. I could list more examples but we already know them. What is the bottom line? I guess it’s that I don’t feel too much empathy (or sympathy) for many of these ‘poor souls’ I’m constanly being told need our help. I’m all out of charity, becuase these days charity very much begins at home as far as I’m concerned.
April 14, 2026
When increasing the age at which people can claim their State Pension, will there ever be any chance of consideration for those who have spent their working lives in manual work and who, unlike those who have had sedentary careers, will have had far more wear and tear on their bodies (and, perhaps, more wear and tear on their minds through financial stress due to the low wages that manual work often pays)? There are people reaching the current retirement age wondering how on earth they can carry on getting up early in the morning, commuting to work and back on today’s busy and badly-maintained roads, and running their homes, especially if, like many older people, illness and physical difficulties come along. Indeed, some current pensioners are still working to make ends meet. Most do not have additional private pensions because they could not afford to contribute to one and, in the case of WASPI women, we all know how badly they have been treated. Most pensioners are only on the basic State Pension, too, because successive governments seem to take pleasure in making some pensioners better off than others even though the cost of living is the same for everyone. What is the thinking behind that? Where is the fairness?
When we talk about fairness, that goes out of the window when it comes to where government chooses to spend taxpayers’ money. It would rather spend it on supporting illegal migrants who have never contributed and never will, on encouraging people to treat having babies as a lucrative ‘career’ choice, on foreign aid (without tracking what the money is being spent on), on the utter and destructive madness of net zero, and so on. In fact, the list goes on. Our current government is now paying, or considering paying, migrant families up to £40,000 to go back their own countries. This is the same government that is happy to lie to WASPI women saying that compensating them will not be a good use of taxpayers’ money (as if governments are ever worried about wasting taxpayers’ money!), that still has not compensated all the post office subpostmasters and subpostmistresses that were treated so badly some years ago. How can governments continue to find money for their pet vanity projects and dubious causes yet at the same time bleat that there is no money available for their own citizens, the people who pay their handsome wages and generous expenses?
The Coalition government, in 2011, did a good thing and introduced the Triple Lock. It was the first time pensioners received a reasonable boost to their pensions. It would have been a good time to have talked about the future of the new full State Pension which began in 2016 but was only for the few. Millions of people on the basic State Pension receive a lot less that those on the new full one. I know their contributions over the years would have been less but it means that the gap in income between those on the basic and those on the full State Pensions is growing every year, and that is not fair.
The last thing pensioners, and those coming up to pension age, need is a pension that is shrinking even after the Triple Lock because of the ever-rising cost of living, and an ever-increasing retirement age. That is no way to treat those people who have actually contributed to their own pensions, and the pensions and benefits of others, while working. Does anyone in government care?
April 14, 2026
correct my dad did a hard physical job, there is no way he could have worked past 65.
and changing the rules when people have planned for payouts their entire life, when it is too late for them to make alternative plans stinks.
its like the NHS rationing when its too late for you to save for your own treatment, having promised care your entire life, which it does routinely.
we need proper written contracts for what we get for what we pay in, not leaving it to random public sector rationing decisions which you have no way of predicting.
April 14, 2026
I totally agree that we need proper written contracts. It’s a good idea but obviously too good for successive governments to even consider.
April 14, 2026
You make an excellent point regarding those in manual employment and age.
I’m sure some smart people who don’t live in the real world can just wave their hand and say ‘oh they can change jobs to a more sedentary one’
There has to be enough jobs around for that to be an option that are interchangeable with a life as a manual worker.
B&Q can only take on so many former brickies or other forms of manual employment.
As more people stay working in their later years, or look for work, how does this affect the youth employment market I wonder.
As you rightly point out successive governments have wasted tax payers money and now someone has to pay for their mistakes. Although I think to say mistakes excuses them because it implies they didn’t or don’t understand the consequences of their ideological and vanity projects. They do, a child could work it out with basic maths skills.
It angers me beyond belief that they can get away with this, walk off into the sunset with a payout that we could only imagine in our wildest dreams, and then loftily tell people they need to tighten their belts.
April 14, 2026
Your point about youth workers is a really good one. I think it would make sense to allow people to retire earlier rather than later. This would so obviously free up jobs for youth workers which can only be a good thing for the entire nation. Sadly, no government would allow it.
April 14, 2026
Correct. 22-25% of poorer workers in Manchester and some areas of London die before collecting their pension at 66. 19% of men from lower social classes die before reaching pension age, according to Marie Curie Org from 2022, so those figures are only going to rise.
April 14, 2026
Good point on those doing manual labour. I’m a gardener, and reach retirement age (66) in a few months. I did other sorts of manual work for the majority of my working life. It does knock it out of you: various broken bones, muscle injuries, bad back of course. Small injuries take much longer to heal.
Also I and many like me will have to keep working, as the oap isn’t enough to live on, in any degree of comfort. Maybe there could be a higher income tax threshold for those having to work on in retirement, so we could work shorter hours as we get decrepit.
April 14, 2026
Well they have already increased pension ages from 60 to 67 for women and life expectancy recently has gone down not up due to Covid Vaccines, Covid and the rather second rate NHS.
Of course if they ditched net zero, got fracking, drilling, mining and energy costs fell to 25% of current levels as in the US, reduces car taxes and if they stopped increasing council tax so much they would not need so much pension. If they had a growth agenda rather than a doom loop one perhaps that would help too.
In short halve the size of government and stop spending £billions on things of little value, no value or actually negative value like net zero, Covid Vaccines, Covid Lockdowns, the Boris Wave (£20k per household) and other largely low skilled immigration.
April 14, 2026
++Well said.
It seems obvious to many that if the government, past and certainly present, stopped spending money on vanity and ideological pet projects things might improve in the purse.
That’s not going to happen until we have some form of consequences for those who misuse the public purse.
A lot of the waste is not down to genuine mistakes, but genuine profligacy.
April 14, 2026
Plus corruption (often political) in many cases in awarding contracts and selecting people for jobs in the state sector or Quangos.
April 14, 2026
The cost of pensions is indeed affected by life expectancy. Actuaries for private schemes used to allow for a modest increase in average expectancy for younger members, based on improved health care trends. There are times when you wonder whether government policies aren’t angled at reducing life expectancy and thus pension bills. Net zero heating bills or zero heat, increasingly dysfunctional NHS with added DIE selection of who gets treated. Getting rid of people who might vote them out, too.
April 14, 2026
Pensioners have paid NI contributions into the system all their working lives. Each year the state spends the money contributed on general expenditure. The state pension and it’s earnings related element known as SERPS have been used by many of those approaching pensionable age to calculate how much savings they need to put away whilst they are still working.
Why should the pensioners have their income reduced because successive governments need to pay for excessive inward migration and particularly, the boat people? Already, this government has tried to tinker with the pensioner’s winter fuel allowance.
The pensioners are not responsible for the profligacy of previous governments. If money has to be saved, the way to do it is to reduce the benefits bill for those who claim they cannot work, asylum seekers and their families and particularly the boat people.
Reply Try reading my piece before writing your misleading or wrong pieces. We pay our NI into a fund and its pays the pensions out of those receipts, not general spending. It is a pension fund where current contributors pay for current pensioners.
April 14, 2026
My Lord,
Are you saying the state pension scheme as it is today, is actually a ponzi scheme which would be illegal if a private company ran it?
Reply The NI financed scheme is legal under its own Acts of Parliament and entails today’s contributions paying for today’s pensions. You would not let a private company do that because it could go bust, whereas there will always be a state which can always collect NI
April 14, 2026
Well a state can also go (like Birmingham or Denis Healey) but but they can also just change the law to give state pensions only to those over 90 or tax the pensions at 90% or grab say 90% in IHT rather than 40%, or cheat the Waspi Women.
Playing chess but the state can always change the rules as the game progresses.
April 14, 2026
But we all know there is no fund as such, National Insurance is collected as general taxation that is why the government uses ur as a cash cow, particularly employers NI.
No mention is made of reducing the gold plated public sector pensions which are either partially or completely unfounded or increasing the age when they can be drawn.
The police is a particularly goid example, being able to retire at 50 on full pensions then walk back into the similar job as a civilian.
There are plenty of avenues to reduce spending without touching the miserable state pensions.
April 14, 2026
There is an actual National Insurance Fund (NIF). It holds NICs separate from general tax revenue, it always covered the outgoings plus a surplus to invest until Hunt dropped the rate from 12% to 8% – odd don’t you think. Reeves then increased the burden on Employers. The self employed get off light. An employed person has contributions 15% over £5000 plus 8% over £12,570 they have no employer contribution. It’s managed by HMRC. It’s a Ponzi; today’s workers are largely used to pay all current pensioners.
April 14, 2026
They mainly assume the state pension is just a universal benefit.
And there lays the problem with liebour they see the pension a benefit and not something that most working people are entitled to unless you’ve never done a days work in there lives like some of the scrounging parasite on freebie benefits the liebour government chuck money at you, which really pisses me off I worked in transport as a HGV mechanic for over 40 years and only bought what I could afford including a new house new cars and holidays abroad because these were my entitlement of all the hard work I put into the system and not hand outs from anyone, so when I retired I am entitled to a pension to let me live some form of life and not have to watch every penny I spend unless you’ve been on benefits all of your miserable lives at the working person’s expense in the form of taxes by me then YES as a pensioner we should get a good living amount of money End of rant
April 14, 2026
It does seem as if the Labour government, and their followers, seem to regard the State Pension as just another benefit and NI as just another tax. This must be resisted by all pensioners as we have paid into the fund and expect to be paid from it.
While clearly the amount we are paid should increase by the rate of inflation to compensate for the profligacy of governments printing money and it seems reasonable to increase it based on increases in wages which lead to more being paid into the NI fund, I find it hard to defend increasing it by 2.5% even if there’s no inflation or wage increase.
April 14, 2026
Jeremy Hunt when Chancellor was keen to reduce and eventually eliminate NI under the guise of “simplification” but I always thought it was because he wanted to break the link between NI and pension contributions and turn the pension into a means-tested benefit.
If I buy an annuity for £100,000 from an insurance company they have to pay me £6000 a year. What they do with the £100,000 is of no interest or relevance to me, they might prudently invest it to fund the £6000 payments or they may spend it all immediately on a bonus for the CEO – I don’t care. Same with NI – I paid in for 30 years so the government pays me a pension, that was the deal, what they actually did with my NI contributions is not my concern.
April 14, 2026
Yes, I agree, Roy, they wanted the link breaking. I think the intention was add the 8% on income tax. Take it off for pensioners at the start but eventually remove that concession too.
April 14, 2026
Working to age 68 (or older) is probably fine IF you have a desk job, particularly if it is a high status one. Lounging around on the red benches of Parliament with a daily stipend and accessing taxpayer-subsidised restaurants and bars, seems to be the ultimate in comfortable “working” conditions to me. It is a completely different matter if you work in other sectors, particularly construction which takes a heavy physical toll on the body.
If the country needs to make significant public expenditure savings (and it does) then it should start by scrapping ALL welfare paid to immigrants (including the criminal ones exploiting the ridiculous asylum system) and access to “free” public services should be barred unless and until they become British citizens. The only exception should be emergency health treatment for genuine health emergencies. If they arrive with an existing health condition it is NOT an emergency.
As it is, successive Governments have turned the UK into the Welfare State for the World, his wife, parents and umpteen “dependants.”
The second place to seek savings should be the civil service/public sector pension schemes. Final salary schemes should be scrapped and they should be placed on a level playing field with the private sector where final salary schemes have disappeared.
April 14, 2026
+1.
A special state sector pension tax at say 100% over £15k PA would be fair and very hard to evade! The state pensions are after all funded by the far less well pensioned private sector.
April 14, 2026
Most public sector pensions were reformed in 2015, replacing final salary models with career average revalued earnings (CARE) schemes. These are still defined benefit pensions — meaning they offer a guaranteed income — but based on average pay rather than final salary.
Examples of reformed public sector defined benefit schemes include:
NHS Pension Scheme
Teachers’ Pension Scheme
Civil Service Pension
Armed Forces Pension Scheme
Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
There are now very few Final Salary schemes remaining. It’s a myth that the public sector gets good pensions, as the majority of jobs are low-paid. In fact, it has become so severe that in the Civil Service, to meet the minimum wage rates, the lowest three pay grades now pay the same rate.
April 14, 2026
That seems a very good explanation Lord John but I am sure that I’ve read many times that there was no “fund” as such – that NI was simply a further tax added to the income tax pot. The “State Pension” was therefore paid out of the ‘petty cash’ till so to speak – from this years tax take? Which leads me to ask about Civil Service Final Salary, Index Linked pensions. There is no fund there either I thought or am I mistaken with this too?
Reply This explains the NI fund.Civil service and NHS pensions are not funded. Local government and MP pensions are paid out of endowment funds as those contributions were saved and invested like a private pension.
April 14, 2026
OK, thank you – that’s very helpful M’Lud.
I will read your article (again) and have a longer think about it… 🙂
April 14, 2026
Are these endowment funds the same as the endowment funds which were supposed to mature and pay off people’s mortages, then fell short and you were on your own – or are they some other form of endowment?
April 14, 2026
First – government should publish the figures about the cost of public sector pensions. This to include payments in excess of “fully funded” pensions and the annual employer contribution which facilitates the “fully funding” of some of those pots. Civil servants should not be getting up to 28% of salary contributed into their pension pots. Change all civil service pensions to defined contribution now. Contributions already paid in can be kept.
Then take the inflation element of the triple lock out. 2.5% – Ok. Average wage rises – OK. Inflation, pensioners (and benefits recipients) should not be protected from inflation anymore than the workers. They should feel the same benefits and pain as the rest of the workforce.
Pension credits are paid to those who have not contributed sufficiently so perhaps that should be part of the conversation. We have people on benefits of pensionable age being paid more than pensioners and still having their housing paid for.
Perhaps we are looking for savings in the wrong area when discussing the state pension which is a contributary payment rather than a benefit.
April 14, 2026
While the economy is in so much debt and generally dying on it’s feet it strikes me that there is little scope to change anything with pension currently – we’ll have to wait for a sensible right of centre party to get in to make some rational changes to grow the economy.
Surely it is time that that we stopped using NI to fund pensions – it no longer makes sense. A good many companies provide all sorts of insurance options to their employees, so why not include the freedom to save as much as you can in a personal pension?
That money would be ring-fenced by the insurance company, adding in a small incentive of interest at a low but sustainable rate.
This would all give pensioners more options on how they used their pension pot.
On a cut-off date, any NI paid would be switched to an insurance company chosen by the employees, and that would save HMG having to worry about pensions ever again.
Those that live a good part of their lives on benefit would be allowed a national pension, now classed as benefits. Those already retired could continue to take the OAP, but should have the option of investing any funds they still have in NI into a scheme of their choosing.
Even small companies could work with insurance companies to establish insured pensions, which might become a tad more complicated where people move around jobs frequently.
The less we give to big government to manage on our behalf the better, as we have seen from many aspects of life, HMG is barely competent.
April 14, 2026
“Barely Competent” you are being rather generous. £trillions wasted on diff Covid Vaccines, Lockdowns, Net Zero, Millitary procurement, Blair’s idiotic wars, HS2, bat tunnels, fish discos… the list is endless.
April 14, 2026
Yes a rash momentary thought. (:
April 14, 2026
@Lifelogic – for some as long as someone else, anyone else pays because I’m entitled who cares
April 14, 2026
Diff not diff!
April 14, 2026
This is what the Adam Smith Institute has to say:
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/what-lower-birth-rates-meannbsp?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
April 14, 2026
You have described the workplace pension scheme and before that contracting out.
April 14, 2026
“that would save HMG having to worry about pensions ever again”
People must have forgotten examples like Equitable Life. If this happens to multiple insurers, due to the projected investment returns not materialising, it would possibly mean a government bailout, not an industry bailout.
That can’t happen with a relatively simple pay as you go scheme. One big advantage of it.
April 14, 2026
Yes retirement age should depend on type of work people have been doing for instance construction workers, fishermen and plumbers should be allowed retire earlier – also people who have to crawl into small spaces to do their work – and what about women doing sewing and needlework with diminished eyesight and then those who need to maintain finger dexterity to keep up – the whole thing is a mine field.
April 14, 2026
@Frank. I agree, and it is a minefield. In France the “cheminaux” (stokers of steam trains) got early retirement (50, I think). They needed it. Somehow that benefit survived past the age of steam and transferred to modern train drivers, who do no more than sit down and flick a few switches. Strong unions…
April 14, 2026
Let’s look at the day to day reality for many indigenous working age folk.
A low earning family working manually is paying far too much in council tax, income tax, NI and vat to also pay additional NI so that they can retire “early”. I’m 69 and probably couldn’t work manually for 30 odd hours a week. I’m guessing you the same.
On the other side of the ledger, this family’s tax is going to pay for all manner of fripperies of far less importance than their future pension. So surely the first port of call shouldn’t be to increase the age at which these poor people qualify to take the pension to which they’ve contributed? The first port of call should be to deny benefits to the millions who haven’t contributed.
April 14, 2026
We should stop the ludicrous practice of giving free National Insurance credits to those receiving benefits, and also remove the right for people to buy back added years. Tens of thousands of people living abroad receive UK Child Benefit, and this gives them free NI credits, which then entitles them to the UK State Pension when they have never contributed a penny towards it. You also now get foreign nationals who have worked for a few years in the UK buying added years. This entitles them to a pension in more than one country, providing them with an income far higher than that of UK residents, who are capped at 35 years. Yet again, we see a two-tier system whereby foreigners are treated better than those working in the UK, and it is costing the taxpayer huge amounts.
April 14, 2026
The issue is not how generous or not the state pension is. The bigger issue is why people who have never made any contribution towards their own wellbeing either through work effort or otherwise imagine they have a right to demand welfare by taking money from those who have worked and contributed to the national purse.
The unfairness becomes even more ridiculous when people simply arrive in the UK from afar and immediately receive state support greater than those people who were born and worked in the UK their entire lives.
Under those unfair situations the native wealth creators simply stop creating wealth. They ask what is the point, if their wealth is simply taken from them to pay those who have contributed nothing and never will?
April 14, 2026
All pension schemes including the state’s offer a deal made in hell: in return for a tax break on contributions and (possibly) a modest uplift on the return you get, you relinquish ownership of the capital you have saved over a lifetime. It leaves your estate when you die, never to return.
No wonder the pension industry booms. No wonder the state wants a slice. And as if that were not enough, inflation means you save in good money and get paid in bad.
Had you not been seduced by this devil’s bargain and just saved, your heirs would retain that capital for ever, generation after generation, providing family income or growing exponentially by the miracle of compound interest. At worst they would take an IHT hit, but a little forward planning would fix that.
April 14, 2026
Meanwhile, Two-Tier is advancing plans to make us an Associate Member of the EU … which I have been predicting was the Establishment’s intention for some time.
A couple of days ago Zelensky set out the plan nicely:
Zelensky: ““If the United States truly thinks about withdrawing from Nato, then European security will be based solely on the EU. But not in its current form,” Mr Zelensky told The Rest is Politics podcast. He added: “I think that the EU is in a situation where it needs more countries. The UK, Ukraine, Turkey and Norway; these are four strong countries which are part of Europe.”
These are precisely the countries which I have been saying would become Associate Members, along with others outside the Eurozone.
And now the new Hungarian President, in his first official statement, has said the UK should rejoin.
The Establishment, and the puppet Two-Tier, are rolling the pitch for The Great Betrayal.
April 14, 2026
Seems so!
April 14, 2026
@Donna – the great betrayal was the only agenda from day one – the ‘Plan’. But to enact it what was needed was the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ and the driving of a wedge between the UK and the USA – all part of the ‘Plan’. Nothing else has been imagined since the day they took office, with the greater majority in Parliament in full support
April 14, 2026
Are there any limits to what a PM can give away to the EU in order to become an associate member (aka a colony) of the EU? Last time we gave away our fish. Could this time be our North Sea assets? It would save the PM making a decision on whether or not to drill in the North Sea. Or, given the PM’s desire to give away sovereign territory, perhaps he could give away a slice of the UK? Can the PM sign an agreement with the EU which would cost us £trillions to exit?
April 14, 2026
And of course Russia is a very strong European Country? Should they not be granted permission to join NATO? They asked 3 times!
April 14, 2026
On the other hand, if you have voted for borrow and waste governments all your adult life, you don’t deserve a state pension. How do you think the National Debt will be paid down if people don’t take responsibility for their voting patterns?
Divvy up the increases in debt of successive governments amongst those who voted for them and deduct it from their state pension allowance. Would there be any left?
April 14, 2026
Thank you for that very helpful explanation. It would be still more helpful if the politicians dealing with matters such as this gave cogent reasons for their decisions and actions rather than the point scoring that is the norm. Reform seem no better than anyone else in this: following their recent decision to keep the Triple Lock, all we heard from Mr Tice was that it was the result of full discussion, but no hint of the reasons which may well have been just the ones that you have set out.
April 14, 2026
The assembled media had the perfect opportunity to ask Mr Tice to set out the reasons. Instead they chose to focus on trivialities and (attempted) “gotcha” questions.
April 14, 2026
Yes JR gives us facts, you can put your life on them being accurate.
It’s interesting that MEPs, MPs and Civil Servants have separate funds (which they own?).
The British pension usurped private savings and investment, and therefore have an obligation to maintain viable pension payments to contributors. They are failing in real terms.
The British Social Security bills are a completely different sector, but I admits I was confused by the term ‘pension benefit’ and thought that the contributory pensions were considers as a social security benefit, however it is the benefit that shadows our contributory pensions, recipients are the ‘family members’ of ‘asylum seekers’ if they are the correct age – or deemed to be.
April 14, 2026
‘National Insurance Contributions are paid into a fund’ That is from the outset the flawed description. When those taking care of themselves pay into a fund, health, insurance, pension that fund in normal terms is used to invest for an income to payout on commitments. With the UK scheme it started as a Ponzi scheme it continues as a Ponzi scheme. It is trapped by political ego and unable to move forward.
Maggie Thatcher seems to have recognised that and tried to wean people in a different direction, but like all great long-term ideas was screwed by a Parliament concerned with their seats at the next election.
Although not a direct comparison but a State run fund (and it is a growth fund) with similar aims there is the ‘Norway Fund’(Government Pension Fund Global) the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $2 trillion in 2026. Were in the UK our NI Contributions seem to get interwind with general taxation, in Norway the keep it separate and purposeful
April 14, 2026
It would have been reasonable to suggest even at today’s rates of 8% employee and 15% employer, (23%) contributions to National Insurance, an income derived from that level of investment would more that suffice. I know that if I invest 23% of income I could more than take care of health and pension needs. Clearly something is wrong.
April 14, 2026
Were in the UK.. Where in the UK
April 14, 2026
The welfare bill is put of control. Instead of picking on those who paid in and expected a decent pension at retirement. How about getting the workshy off benefits. How about no benefits to anyone who has not paid tax for ten years minimum. How about no benefits for illegal immigrants.
April 14, 2026
i emigrated a few years ago from UK to Australia and obviously I compared provision for old age/retirement in the two countries. As a general statement the state is much larger in the UK than in Australia, in health, pensions and education. There are greater incentives in Australia for people to save for both their healthcare and their retirment. this is obviously essential to reduce the burden on the state. Tax incentives are important to achieve this. Whatever changes are made in UK they must be done slowly with long term not short term objectives. UK politics suffers terribly from short termism with decisions made to capture votes in imminent elections rather than to ensure good long term outcomes. It is too easy for politicians to forget that National insurance contributions are one side of a long term contract, the other side of which is state provision for health care (most costly in old age) and retirement. in practice it doesn’t work like that. Pensions are not funded from lifetime contributions but from curent contributions of those still working and general taxation. It is much more the case in Australia that healthcare in old age and retirement is funded more from an individual’s savings whether made through salary deductions or personal investment. Finally one of the key advantages of the smaller state is that issues like pensions are less contentious politically and more stable in both their funding and service provision.
Incidentally UK state pensions paid to retirees in Australia are not indexed linked. Aus state pensions are index linked but I do not qualify for one as my private provision is above the qualifying threshold, which is fair. There is no such criterion in the UK and even foreign nationals are entitled to a UK state pension. No wonder the burden is crushing and unaffordable.
April 14, 2026
Those that want to abandon the triple lock, all propose it for now, today. The people it would hit the most are those already receiving pension, they are at an age where alternative provisions aren’t available, the means to gain an income. When these older folks came on the seen the majority were by today’s standards poor, there wasn’t surplus cash, there wasn’t foreign holidays and nights out.
These down tickers say, there are other benefits available. But these are old people some in their 80s & 90s with dignity, they pieced together some semblance of a home and a small amount in the bank so to speak. Benefits don’t come to those with assets until the assets are gone. Yes some have other pensions, just a few and they pay tax on them just like everyone else.
As of today, the basic State Pension is £184.90 per week, that is to pay local taxes, heating lighting, food etc
There has to be another way, don’t attack people that got old were brought up in different circumstance to today’s young. This Parliament is paying people to be unproductive, it is paying people pensions without contributions. Even those that never contributed to NI, if the don’t own homes and have money in savings get more than fully NI paid up pensioners
April 14, 2026
A person I know who worked for years for the DWP told me that in Eastern Europe there are guides published both as books and online telling people how to play the system to claim money from the UK government by living here for a short time and then returning with enough capital and continuing payments to build your own house. This person left the Dept. as management showed no inclination to remedy the abuses.
April 14, 2026
In essence, and it will take another generation for the effect to be felt. We need an Honest Parliament, if they wish by law to take National Insurance contributions those contributions should be as implied ‘on the tin’ invested for peoples futures, not just to pay ‘Ponzi’ promises.
It can and should be done, Thatcher tried, but we are saddled with 650MPs that dont do elections and are in fear of the next one. Its about self not the Country
April 14, 2026
We would have more money to spend on pensions if we were not pursuing the totally false ideology of CAGW and its “solution”, Net Zero. According to Professor Gordon Hughes of the Renewable Energy Foundation the UK taxpayer has already funded £220bn in renewable subsidies (£8000/household) since 2002 (2024 prices) and is currently funding £26bn/year. NESO say their Clean Power 2030 project will cost “over £40bn annually”. This is in addition to Net Zero crippling our industry with high energy prices and thus causing de-industrialisation, unemployment and loss of taxation income. How many £billions could come from further extractions from the North Sea? The government argues there is no gas and oil left to extract yet Norway drilled 49 new exploratory wells in 2025 with 21 discoveries some of which are significant findings.
April 14, 2026
I fully understand why young people are giving up and going into very early retirement, in all effect.
Effort does not pay off in the UK. Not legal effort, anyway.
April 14, 2026
I am 85 and have a spreadsheet showing all my Incomes and National Insurance contributions since I graduated in 1962/63. In 1963 I paid £31 total NI contributions on a graduate income of £675 a year. When my NHS Fundholding job was made redundant by Tony Blair in 1999, I already had a private pension from other employments and decided to retire early aged 59.
I paid £1843 in NIC that year and began to receive 52 NIC credits each year until I reached retirement age of 65 in 2006 when I began to receive a State Pension.
My total NI contribution during my 36 working years was £26,588. On the 20 years since then I have received £203,261 in State Pension, 7.6 Times more than I paid in over the years (but note that my NI contributions haven’t been corrected for inflation).
For comparison, I paid £35,950 for a detached house in 1978. Its current ‘notional’ value is £730,000, around a 20x multiplier in 48 years. If I had only the State Pension now, even as a single widower I should have to be very frugal to survive. Thank goodness for my private company pension, though the triple lock does help a little as my savings slowly haemorrhage due to inflation.
April 14, 2026
As a pensioner, I receive the old state pension, which is not exactly generous. Fortunately, I also have a private pension, which I paid into for many years while working. There should be no argument about keeping the triple lock or raising the pension age.
The utter stupidity of many governments since we discovered North Sea oil and gas has damaged the UK. Norway created a sovereign wealth fund funded by its North Sea oil and gas. Last year that generated around £50 billion for Norway and is likely to keep growing. The UK squandered its opportunity to create a similar wealth fund, and last year our Oil and Gas generated £4.4 billion. That is what happens when you overtax an industry and follow the crazy Net Zero policy. Ed Miliband/Keir Starmer should face treason charges.
April 14, 2026
Surely it should be limited to those who have contributed to it, and paid on the basis of contributions rather than to anybody of pensionable age who happens to be a British citizen?
One anomaly is all the extra freebies, e.g. free dentistry, which go with Pension CREDIT but not to people just over the Pension Credit threshold, often for technical reasons.
The problem has always been that instead of ringfencing NI contributions the Treasury has operated a one-pot system, so our own money has effectively been misapplied by the government. The NI contributions should have been properly invested, husbanded as the insurance premiums they were supposed to be.
April 14, 2026
“People who still want to retire earlier than these later ages should have an option to pay additional NI contributions into the Fund in their later years in employment to buy themselves a full State pension at an earlier retirement age.”
I think you’ll find that many of us are already paying “additional NI contributions” for no value. I am already well in excess of the 30 years of full contributions required for the maximum pension entitlement. I have well over a decade before my state pension is (currently) due, during which time I will be continuing to make NI contributions for, for me, zero benefit or return.
I will currently get no extra benefit for making what will end up being an additional 17/18 years worth of contributions over the 30 yet, what you propose is that I get even less while paying even more (work a year longer, pay another year’s NI, get a year’s less pension since working an extra year probably won’t add a year onto my life expectancy).
How much more over above all the extra I am already paying and will continue to pay (the 17/18 years of contributions for no return) do you expect me to pay in order to be able “retire early” (which, in reality, means retire at the age the government says I can currently draw the state pension)?
What’s needed is to scrap the triple lock and replace it with a more sensible link, say a fixed percentage of median earnings.
April 14, 2026
“Of course a government with a majority could repeal all the legislation and say that NI is now simply a general tax”
Which is what it plainly is – an unhypothecated tax – as has been recognized and baldly stated by all financial and pensions advisors for decades.
As to “not giving people any right to a State pension. They could then legislate to make the State pension a normal benefit, with means testing” – please, no more ‘means testing’ that always rewards the lazy and feckless and punishes the provident. Just take the whole thing away, and let the whole country see how well politicians treat themselves while gouging us for taxes to bribe their idlest voters with.
April 14, 2026
201 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK yesterday 13th April 2026 …
April 15, 2026
They were transferred here by the Government.
April 15, 2026
correct
April 14, 2026
Perhaps the annual percentage increase for Civil servants may be used to establish the State Pension annual increase?
April 14, 2026
Which government reduced the employee NI contribution rate from 12% to 8% ? Hint: it was the Tories.
Predictably (and yes it was completely foreseeable), the NI fund is now in deficit after being in surplus for many years.
On the other hand there is an extremely good article on the state pension on the “conservative woman” website.
Before you start on the Triple Lock, we need to tie the state pension to contribution more tightly. People get NI credits for being on unemployment benefits for example.
The Pension Credit level is only about £3 a week below the state pension. You do not need any contribution record to claim this. Anyone over state pension age can rock up in the UK and be entitled to Pension Credit without ever contributing one penny.
What’s more, the Pension Credit is a “gateway benefit” for other freebies, like dental care and housing benefit, and many other. Someone on Pension Credit is almost certainly better off than someone who receives only the state pension when these other benefits are included.