Welcome to IF’s July Newsletter

Addressing the intergenerational divide

Our latest research provides a comprehensive assessment of how conditions for young people in the UK have worsened over the past twenty years. It brings together data and analysis across eight core policy areas. In her foreword to the report, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, the “Baby” of the House of Lords states, “This report is a wake-up call. Intergenerational fairness must be at the heart of policymaking – not an afterthought...a society that sidelines its younger generations puts its own future at risk. The time to act is now.”

Winter fuel u-turn

The government should have held firm and not bowed to the pressure from the grey vote over winter fuel payments. Pensioner poverty has halved over 30 years while pensioner median wealth increased by 39% over a decade – from £243,000 in 2010 to £338,000 in 2020 – during which time the triple lock on the state pension ratcheted up year-on-year. Remember too that the triple lock rise took place during a decade of record low inflation.

Meanwhile there have been few in-roads into reducing child poverty: 4.5 million children – compared to 1.2 million over-65s – face the worst poverty levels of all generations. In fact, 72% of poor children live in working families.

The June Spending Review sets out the government spending priorities. Before the review, IF laid out our calls for spending – and saving – priority areas in this article, focusing on reducing the direct and indirect tax burden on the young. Following the Chancellor’s delivery in the House, you can read our response in this article by Conor Nakkan which argues that welcome announcements over investment in housing, transport and education and skills were undermined by the government’s intention to cut Personal Independent Payments and health element to Universal Credit while also turbo-charging nuclear energy.

The government’s welfare reform bill passed eventually but not before concessions were made to backbench MPs. We at IF were deeply concerned to see intergenerational unfairness creeping into the legislation with under-22s entirely blocked from applying for the health-related element of Universal Credit along with plans to make eligibility to Personal Independent Payment PIP) tighter.

According to NHS England, around 22% of 20–25 year-olds had a probable mental disorder in 2023. Excluding vulnerable young people from accessing PIP support while giving wealthier older generations access to winter fuel payments seems particularly intergenerationally inequitable. There is still much work to do in order to ensure that in the forthcoming “review” the ladder is not pulled up from younger generations facing mental health disabilities. Sadly, it looks like the government will continue with its plan to restrict payment of the health element of Universal Credit to under-22s.

The government’s welfare reform bill passed eventually but not before concessions were made to backbench MPs. We at IF were deeply concerned to see intergenerational unfairness creeping into the legislation with under-22s entirely blocked from applying for the health-related element of Universal Credit along with plans to make eligibility to Personal Independent Payment PIP) tighter.

According to NHS England, around 22% of 20–25 year-olds had a probable mental disorder in 2023. Excluding vulnerable young people from accessing PIP support while giving wealthier older generations access to winter fuel payments seems particularly intergenerationally inequitable. There is still much work to do in order to ensure that in the forthcoming “review” the ladder is not pulled up from younger generations facing mental health disabilities. Sadly, it looks like the government will continue with its plan to restrict payment of the health element of Universal Credit to under-22s.

Towards intergenerational fairness in local government

This paper investigates how to embed intergenerational thinking within local government and communities. It builds on existing intergenerational impact assessments to create a temporal tool which IF tested with Oxfordshire County Council with its duty to respond to an elected “Champion of Future Generations”, Charlie Hicks, former county councillor. If you work in local government and would like a presentation on how intergenerational impact assessments can help you to protect spending for younger and future generations, please email liz@if.org.uk. 

If you want to catch up on our other research papers on taxation, pensions, the housing crisis, geographic age segregation, why the government should the lack of young people's ability to save go to our research pages on IF's website.