Milburn: Cut Pensioner Benefits To Help Poor

By Sophy Ridge, Political Correspondent

Wealthy pensioners should have their benefits slashed to help push up living standards for struggling workers, according to a Government-commissioned report.

Social mobility tsar and former Labour Minister Alan Milburn called for older people to bear more of the burden of austerity.

His first annual report for the coalition warned the coalition's target to end child poverty by 2020 was likely to be missed, possibly by as many as two million.

Mr Milburn, who also called for an increase in the minimum wage, said the low paid were the "forgotten people of Britain".

Two in three children in poverty are in families where an adult works and parents simply did not earn enough, the adviser said.

The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission also warned social mobility in the UK is flatlining as the poor bear the brunt of coalition cuts.

Many low and middle-income children face being worse off than their parents because of falling earnings and rising prices, it claimed.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg both say pensioners should not be targeted

Mr Milburn said: "Poverty touches almost half of Britain's citizens at some point over a nine-year period and one third over four years.

"Today child poverty is overwhelmingly a problem facing working families, not the workless or the work-shy.

"Two-thirds of Britain's poor children are now in families where an adult works. In three-quarters of those households someone already works full-time.

"The principal problem seems to be that those working parents simply do not earn enough to escape poverty ... A job remains the best safeguard against being poor. But it is not a cure for poverty."

He recommends that some benefits currently enjoyed by pensioners - including free bus passes and winter fuel allowances - should be means-tested.

"The question we have got to ask is 'is it right that at a time when we have got such high levels of youth unemployment, when working families are seeing their wages stagnating and their public services being cut, wealthy pensioners have their benefits protected and in some cases enhanced'," he said.

"I think there is a strong case for looking again at the winter fuel allowance and free TV licences, particularly for better-off pensioners."

But Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote in the Daily Telegraph that "punishing pensioners isn't going to help a single child achieve more in life".

David Cameron's official spokesman also made clear he did not agree that pensioners should shoulder a larger share of austerity measures.

"The key to tackling poverty and raising people's incomes is of course through work and through a welfare system that ensures that work always pays," he said

Paul Green, director of communications for Saga, added; "Alan Milburn appears to be a bit bonkers and is barking up the wrong tree. 

"Playing the politics of envy is not way to create a cohesive society. Young people are not poorer because their parents have worked hard and are richer. 

"Pensioners may have paid off their mortgages, but they have fewer opportunities to earn more and change their financial circumstances than others in society."

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