Denial about rising bill for welfare
Author: The Guardian |
The all party commission on 2020 public services believes the scale of future demand, independent of the need to cut the existing 80bn structural deficit in the nation’s finances, will require new ways to fund the welfare state such as co-payment, greater use of social insurance, a tax on property price gains, and increasing the full state pension age for those capable to work to 69 by 2050.
It also proposes new responsibilities on citizens to reduce the demands they make on the state. “If citizens refuse to pay more, they have to contribute more,” the report says.
It also proposes the break-up of the existing Whitehall structure, and the development of more locally-run services.
The report suggests “individual eye-catching proposals to save public money do not meet the need to create a new constituency for the kind of tax changes over the long-term that will be required”.