HC Deb 27 July 1978 vol 954 cc1777-8
5. Mr. Greville Janner

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer at what average age men and women, respectively, employed in his Department have retired in each of the past five years.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Denzil Davies)

With permission, I shall circulate the figures in the Official Report, but the overall average age of men and women who retired from the Treasury during the years 1973 to 1977 was 621 and 60, respectively.

Mr. Janner

When does my right hon. Friend think we shall be able to afford to get rid of the present ludicrous system under which older men who are desperate to retire have to stay on at work while younger people who are desperate for jobs are left unemployed? When can we afford to bring in the flexible approach to pensionable ages which is presaged in the admirable Green Paper, "A Happier Old Age", which appeared last week?

Mr. Davies

My hon. and learned Friend has raised an important point, but when he uses the word "afford" I must remind the House that the gross cost of reducing the pensionable age for men to 60 would be about £2½ billion. Some of that would be saved, of course, by a reduction in the unemployment register, but even with that taken into account the cost might still be about £1½ billion.

Mr. McCrindle

Why do the Government insist on costing a reduction in male retirement age on the assumption that everyone entitled to retire at 60 would therefore do so? As this appears to be the most likely social change to develop in the immediate future, should not the Government start by finding out how many people would take the advantage of retiring early if it were given to them?

Mr. Davies

It is extremely difficult to make those assumptions. This is the difficulty in this matter of putting a figure of cost on a reduction in the retirement age. We do not know, and it is very difficult to find out, what the pattern of retirement would be afterwards.

Following are the figures:

AVERAGE AGE OF MEN AND WOMEN RETIRING FROM THE TREASURY FROM 1ST JANUARY 1973 TO 31ST DECEMBER 1977
1973 1974 1975 1976 1977
Men 64 62 64 62 61
Women 60 60 60 61 61½

Forward to