'The retired should work for their pension,' says cross bench peer Lord Bichard

Lord Bichard has suggested that retired pensioners could do community work to earn their pensions to avoid being a "burden on the state".

With the an aging population a looming potential problem for the UK economy, the NHS and state pensions, a committee at the House of Lords yesterday discussed the options.

"Are there ways in which we could use incentives to encourage older people, if not to be in full time work, to be making a contribution?" said Lord Bichard, a former head of the Benefits Agency.

The peer gave some suggestions about how this could be enacted "It is quite possible, for example, to envisage a world where civil society is making a greater contribution to the care of the very old, and older people who are not very old could be making a useful contribution to civil society in that respect, if they were given some incentive or some recognition for doing so."

According to panel, the transfer of wealth from young to old in the UK is the highest in Europe, the BBC reported.

Speaking at the House of Lords hearing Professor James Sefton of Imperial College, London said “Current young people will be contributors to the public purse, whereas older generations haven’t. I think they should be angry and I think the deal they are getting is poor"

"There are a lot of transfers going on in the system that are from the young towards the old. The awareness of it is very poor but it will come out.” he concluded.

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