A Labour MP has argued that the UK should consider reforming pension policies and wealth distribution among older generations to help fund increased defence spending
Writing in an opinion piece first published by PoliticsHome, Graeme Downie, MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, said the debate around defence funding risks placing disproportionate burden on younger people while avoiding more politically difficult choices.
Downie set out the issue in terms of generational fairness in the context of national security. He wrote: “Why should young people fight, risking their lives, for older people who have created a system where wealth and power is concentrated in the upper age brackets.”
He argued that modern conflict, particularly lessons drawn from Ukraine, is increasingly reliant on skills more commonly associated with younger generations. “Drone warfare, rapid software adaptation, remote control munitions, complex and hi-tech data management… War is, indeed, a young person’s game,” he wrote.
The MP said increasing defence spending is necessary but cautioned against presenting the issue as a choice between welfare and defence. “The debate has almost immediately been presented as a false choice of ‘welfare or defence’,” he said, adding that reducing welfare could undermine economic resilience and long-term military capability.
Instead, Downie suggested that those who had benefited most economically in recent decades should contribute more. “Some of the conversation now… must include asking those people who benefited financially from peace to sacrifice a portion of that to pay for future security,” he wrote.
This could include changes to the pensions triple lock, which he identified as one area that should be considered as part of a broader funding discussion. He noted that the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the policy could cost over £15 billion annually by the end of the decade.
Downie stressed that any reforms should still protect vulnerable pensioners but argued that avoiding such discussions risks undermining public support for defence. He wrote: “If we continue with a dichotomy of ‘defence or welfare’… we risk that the people we need to help us win being unwilling to fight at all.”
The problem with socialism is that run out of other people’s money. Still true today
Like all government departments, the M.O.D. will spend two million pounds deciding how to spend one million.
Downie’s right that the money could in part come from pensioners, paying careful attention to means-orienting tax hikes. Increasing inheritance tax progressively would be an even better way of rediverting money to defence and other essential functions. But the best would be in overhauling the tax system writ large, increasing taxes on very high and ultra-high earners, and closing tax loopholes to ensure greater tax parity in percentage terms, and ensuring off-shore corporations can’t avoid paying taxes in the markets where they make their profits. But all that’s just the stuff of dreams and wish-horses – no politician has the balls to take on the very wealthy, and it’s so much easier to bash pensioners and the middle-income tranche.
Increase state pension age in line with improvements in life expectancy in order to stabilise the dependancy ratio. And lower state pension age by one year for each child a person has, up to a maximum of 3 or 4 years – will encourage a more sustainable population tax base.
And reform public sector pensions, not necessarily move from DB to DC, as that would incur an immediate cost going from pay-as-yo-go to a funded system, but reduce accrual rates. 45ths accrual rate in civil service is ridiculous – should be 60ths at most, more like 80ths.