Raising the state pension age to 68 will create a hidden benefits timebomb that could force tens of thousands of people in their late 60s to claim welfare support, leading experts have warned.
People who cannot afford to retire early but are unable to remain in work due to ill health could face longer periods relying on working-age or disability benefits while they wait to qualify for the state pension.
The state pension is £241.30 per week, while Universal Credit for a single person is £424.90 per month, showing a huge difference in the amount of state support people can access.
Could drinking in the stands be coming back?
Andy Burnham has described laws which prevent drinking alcohol in view of the pitch at football stadiums as “discrimination” and suggested a change could be trialled.
PM says football fans ‘singled out’
The Prime Minister told reporters: “I don’t think it’s fair for football fans to be singled out.”
The Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) said the “outdated” legislation should be reviewed, while police chiefs have urged against relaxing the law and want to meet Burnham to “explain the challenges”.
Why the ban was brought in
The law was first brought in in 1985 for English and Welsh football grounds under Margaret Thatcher’s government.
- At the time, then-home secretary Leon Brittan said that alcohol was a “major contributory factor in violent and disorderly behaviour” at football matches.
Not an official policy
The BBC reported that Government sources said Burnham was giving an opinion he has long held, rather than making an official policy announcement.
The Government is not taking the PM’s comments as a sign that he is looking to change the law.
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Changes could make policing harder
A UK Football Policing Unit (UKFPU) spokesman said changes could pose “challenges” to policing.
“Other sports simply don’t see the violence and criminal behaviour from their supporters that football does, albeit a minority, with alcohol often playing a significant part in violent and disorderly behaviour,” he added.
AI hacks Australian government – what to know
The Australian government has revealed that an autonomous AI agent hacked a government website in what may be the first known incident of its kind.
A research task gone wrong
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in New York yesterday that the AI agent, which was developed by OpenAI, was carrying out a research task on health and medical statistics when it accessed both public and non-public health data.
- Australia’s deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said that as part of its research, it approached the Medicare portal for information, but when it was denied, it hacked the portal to get the information anyway.
OpenAI slow to inform Australian government
Albanese said the AI company had taken “way too long” to inform the Australian government about what had happened, with it only being made aware on 10 September. The incident occurred in June.
OpenAI says it is still investigating, but found no evidence that patient records had been accessed and remains “committed to transparency”.
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Albanese calls for ‘urgent global guard-rails’
The announcement came less than a day after the Australian PM co-signed a joint statement with 21 other countries, including Germany, Spain and Canada, pressing for “urgent global guard-rails” on frontier AI models, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Channel migrants set to be processed in ex-Navy sea fort near Portsmouth
A former military sea fort could be converted into a processing site for small boat arrivals in Hampshire as migrants make more dangerous journeys across the English Channel to reach the UK.
What to know
The i Paper understands the Government has prepared contingency proposals to deal with arrivals further down the South Coast from Kent.
No final decision has been made by the Government on converting Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, near Portsmouth. It is also understood it would be a temporary facility.
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Anti-asylum protests
An aborted attempt to use Fort Blockhouse to land 50 asylum seekers sparked protests in the town on Tuesday. Police were forced to protect coaches carrying asylum seekers after hundreds of anti-migrant protesters massed at the site.
- Six arrests were made. Police are also “conducting enquiries” after far-right activist Daniel Thomas filmed himself slashing the side of a dinghy with a rescue crew member still on board.
Criticism of the plans
- Zoe Huggins, Conservative leader of Gosport Borough Council, described the fort as unsafe and logistically not viable.
- She said that access on and off the peninsula by two narrow roads created an “easy target” for protesters to blockade coaches transporting migrants, as happened in the Portsmouth riots earlier this month.
- Huggins said that they had heard about the plans through “informal channels”, adding: “It is outrageous that Government can review arrangements like this without talking to the local council.”
The Government response
A public planning inquiry into the proposals is due to be held after Gosport Borough Council and Caroline Dinenage, Conservative MP for Gosport, called for greater transparency from ministers.
A Government spokesperson said: “The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border and will continue to detain, check and process every small boat arrival.”
The nine doomsday essentials you will be officially told to stockpile at home
People will be advised to stockpile a number of items to prepare for war or other emergencies as part of the UK government’s biggest public awareness campaign for decades.
Why you should make an emergency stockpile
While there is no new or imminent threat to Britain from war, the ongoing “grey-zone” activity by Russia, the biggest El Niño weather event for centuries and the risk of an AI-linked accidental power cut, have all raised concerns the British public should be better prepared.
Here are the nine items in the Government’s suggested emergency stockpile list.
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Torches, power banks and radios
Battery or wind-up torch
It is recommended to get a torch as they are safer than candles.
Portable power bank
For charging your mobile phone in a power cut.
Battery or wind-up radio
To get updates during a power breakdown – a car radio can be used, but in severe weather it might be safer to stay inside.
Batteries, first aid kits and hand sanitiser
Spare batteries
For torches and radio and a backup battery for any medical equipment you rely on.
A first aid kit
This should contain items like waterproof plasters, bandages, a thermometer and antiseptic.
For hygiene purposes when the water is off.
Bottled water, non-perishable food and baby supplies
Bottled water
A minimum of 2.5-3 litres of drinking water per person per day is recommended by the World Health Organisation for survival.
Non-perishable food
This shouldn’t need to be cooked. Remember food for your pets and a tin opener.
Baby supplies
Make sure you have nappies and baby formula.
Judge overturns Trump’s White House media ban
A court has issued a temporary restraining order against Donald Trump’s banning of three news organisations from the White House press pool.
The context
CNN, MS Now and must have their access restored for 14 days after a District of Columbia court ruled the move “likely violated their constitutional due process rights”.
- The three media outlets began a legal challenge after their journalists had their White House passes withdrawn. The Trump administration justified the move in court, claiming the organisations published false information and threatened national security.
Why the court overruled Trump
Judge Timothy Kelly ruled the outlets were “likely to succeed” in proving the White House had not exercised “adequate due process” in enforcing the ban.
- Kelly cast doubt on the administration’s arguments that the bans were for national security as Trump did not mention this in his original announcement.
- He also pointed out that “in most cases,” the stories that the Trump administration had taken issue with were written by journalists who “did not even hold card passes”.
- In its original filing, the White House cited statements from officials of the Department of War supporting the ban, but Kelly said they had “no direct knowledge of how reporters operate in the White House, or about any of the facts at issue here”.
The Trump exodus is growing. His allies are running scared
US commentator
With midterm elections a few weeks away, some Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the US President and his unpopular war.
Heidi Karjalainen, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), warned that although raising the retirement age saves the Treasury money overall, it could push more people out of work and onto benefits as “poverty rates rise”.
Catherine Foot, director of the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement, said raising the pension age can leave people “stuck in limbo”, adding: “The labour market is telling you you’re too old to work but the state isn’t yet telling you you’re a pensioner.”
The state pension age is already rising to 67 by 2028 and is currently scheduled to increase to 68 between 2044 and 2046.
However, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Government’s official forecaster, expects the move to 68 could be brought forward by seven years to 2037 to 2039 to ease pressure on the public finances, although this is not Government policy and a review of the timetable is under way.
How much a pension age rise would cost
The OBR has predicted the rise to 67 will force 60,000 people to remain on Universal Credit (UC) for an extra year at a cost of £700m. But it expects the increase to deliver an overall net saving of £10.5bn to the Treasury, largely because fewer people will be receiving the state pension.
But Karjalainen, of the IFS, said the number of people claiming working-age and disability benefits with a further increase to 68 is likely to be even “bigger” – and there is no clear assessment of how much extra money disability benefits could cost in the long-term.
She said claims would increase not only because people would automatically stay on benefits for longer, but also because health problems are more common among people in their 60s.
“The higher the state pension is, the more we’re just going to have working age people who are in poor health, and that then means that we might have more people also applying for these working age disability benefits,” Karjalainen told The i Paper.
Foot said raising the pension age to 68 would pull “tens of thousands” more people onto benefits and called for an “explicit policy strategy” to mitigate against it.
Former pensions minister Steve Webb said a “quirk” of the system means people who start claiming Personal Independence Payment (Pip) before reaching state pension age often continue receiving the more generous benefit “for life”.
Meanwhile, those who claim afterwards usually rely on Attendance Allowance, which is typically less generous because it excludes mobility support. He and pensions expert Karjalainen said raising the state pension age could therefore increase long-term benefit costs, potentially offsetting some of the Treasury’s savings.
Greater risk of people in their late 60s facing poverty
The former coalition-era minister said raising the retirement age to 68 is still “worthwhile” for the Treasury overall, but that there must be a “proper look at how we’re preventing people from falling into poverty, from falling into benefits”.
Just 42 per cent of 65-year-olds are in paid work, dropping to 29 per cent for people at the current state pension age of 66, according to the latest official employment statistics.
Webb said the upcoming rise to 68 is likely to have an even greater impact on benefits claims as people in their late 60s are “far more likely” to have health issues and will still have “bills to pay”.
Foot, of Standard Life, said past increases have led to “more people in poverty and more people accessing benefits”.
A report by the financial services company found that the years before someone begins claiming their state pension can be “particularly financially challenging”, with 13 per cent of 65-year-olds saying they had gone without basic essentials in the previous year because they could not afford them, compared with four per cent of 67-year-olds.
The battle over the future of the state pension triple lock
All this comes as the Government is facing growing calls to move away from the triple lock, which ensures the state pension rises each year by the highest metric of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent.
Karjalainen said scrapping the triple lock would have a greater impact on wealthier pensioners, while a higher state pension age would hit poorer people hardest because they tend to die younger.
Labour has committed to keeping the generous pensions system until the end of this Parliament, with many deeming it too politically toxic to tamper with.
Secretly some MPs agree with many outside of Whitehall who are demanding it is axed after high inflation in recent years sent costs soaring to £146bn a year, accounting for nearly half of welfare spending and more than double the entire defence budget.
Last week, the Government confirmed pensioners who rely solely on the state pension would be exempt from tax with its average worth set to tip above the personal allowance of £12,570 next year. Ministers promised to set out how this would be funded at the 28 October Budget.
A spokesperson from the Department for Work and Pensions said: “The next state pension age review is currently under way and will look at what the state pension age should be in future decades. It will consider a wide range of evidence and must be completed by March 2029. No decisions have yet been made.
“In addition, the Timms Review report has made clear that PIP and its administrative systems are no longer fit for purpose and the recommendations from its final report, due in Autumn, will lay the foundation for sustainable reform.”