§ Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the latest estimates for the cost of reducing the retirement age for men to 64, 63, 62, 61 and 60 years, respectively.
§ Mr. PrenticeOn the assumption that the patern of retirement among men in the five years following the new pension ages would be the same as the present pattern amongst men aged 65 to 70 and that two-thirds(1) of the jobs vacated by men in employment retiring earlier were filled by persons on the unemployment register, the net cost of central Government funds in 1979–80, at average rates for the year, would be in the order of:
Reduction of age to Cost £ million 64 200 63 500 62 700 61 900 60 1,200 However, with the success of the Government's economic policies and a return to full employment, when there would be no significant job replacement by persons on the unemployment register, these costs would rise considerably. To give some indication of this, if the effect of job replacement on the above calculations were disregarded, the costs in 1979–80 would be of the order of:
Reduction of age to Cost £ million 64 500 63 1,100 62 1,600 61 2,100 60 2,700 These figures take account of the net cost to the national insurance fund, the loss of national insurance surcharge, National Health Service, redundancy fund and maternity pay funds income, a broad estimate of the loss of income tax revenue and a saving in supplementary benefits.
(1) The figure of two-thirds has been assumed because not all retirements would create vacancies, and because some vacancies would not be filled, since there would be insufficient unemployed with the necessary qualifications in the right localities.