17/12/2012 Newsnight Scotland

hesitate. That floors me. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland...

Our population may be at it's highest ever level, but it is also

aging fast. So do we have the money and the ideas to help us grow old

gracefully? How will the younger generation care for the elderly,

and why should they? Good evening.

There's more of us, but as a country we're getting older. Those

are the headlines from the 2011 census statistics publish today.

It's not a surprise that our population is aging but whether

we're doing enough to deal with the effects is another matter. Both

government and individuals face tough decisions about how to plan

for the future. We'll discuss that in a moment, but first Jamie Mcivor

takes a look at the figures. The population is ageing. More

people living to an old age but the over 65 so my make-up a bigger

proportion of Scotland's population than children for the first time

ever. It can mean more demand for services for the elderly, whether

they're paid for by the taxpayer or by charities by this lunch club --

like this lunch club. There are so many people getting much older.

We're going to have to get a bigger pension in the future. We have done

our stuff in the past. There are too many old folks these days.

first data from the last census was unveiled today. 1, 2, 3, jump.

the jump is not just in the total population. 890,000 are aged over

65. That is bigger than the number of children for the first time.

This trend begs underlying questions over just high public

services should be focused and how services for the elderly should be

financed. Pensioners' organisations say the Government should choose

his priorities soon. They have to look at what way they are putting

the money out and decide if they are putting it in the right place?

Education? Yes, that is good. But we cannot forget the people who

have been in a World War and they're coming along and they have

to have the services as well. Changing demographics have big

implications for the sort of public services we need and how they

should be funded. When the 1911 census was conducted, old age

pensions were a novelty and only a relatively small number of people

lived long enough to receive them. Indeed, the whole shape of society

has changed over the past century, quite literally. This graph shows

the make-up of the population in 1911. The biggest single group our

children aged four and under. If you go up the graph, fewer and

fewer people of every age are there, until you find just a tiny number

aged over 90. Now to have a look at a similar graph for last year. The

population is much more evenly spread and there are far more older

people. When you look at the census date of 100 years ago, we had very

high numbers of births but people died much earlier. Life-expectancy

for a woman in 1911 was 53 years and 54 men. At the opposite end of

this deal, we know that in 1911, for every 1000 babies that were

born, 100 and that Dean died before the first birthday. By 2011, that

figure has dropped to 4%, so you see the population is living longer

and you have let dine offered these young the ages. -- lest dying off

at these young ages. There is more to consider and where the balance

lies between the young and old. Scotland's population over all was

at its highest ever, defying predictions of long-term decline.

That is not just because people are living for longer. There has been

more berths than debts and that is part of the story, but there has

been more migration as well. changing demographics of our

population beg many questions. How should public services be shipped?

House should be services be paid for? And our policies like free bus

travel and free personal care for the elderly really affordable long

term? I'm joined now by personal finance

expert Fergus Muirhead, from Dundee by the journalist and commentator

Lesley Riddoch and by Eben Wilson, the Director of TaxpayerScotland

campaigning organisation, who's in Southampton tonight. This fact that

we now have more elderly and young people, someone has just handed me

a copy of the Scottish Daily Mail, whose headlined his time bomb of

all the age. Is it has something we have to sort out or is it

potentially a crisis? It is potentially a crisis. The

inter-generational debt has got so large that young people who we are

relying on to pay for the pensions of the elderly, unfortunately,

there's not enough of them. We have to get round that problem. There

probably are ways. We can be horribly negative about this. There

is 3.8 trillion of contingent debt in the public pension system. Or we

can just get down to it and do something about it.

The 3.8 trillion figure you mentioned, this is liabilities to

people who were already retired or everyone in the workforce?

Everybody in the workforce plus the people who are already retired.

Does it strike you as a crisis? Something struggles in me to see it

that way. And I elderly? I and 52. Is the 65-year-old Emily? I don't

find many 65-year-old regard themselves that way. The film talk

about the generation that came through the war and what they

deserve. Anybody that is becoming a pension and I was born after the

war. They also tend to own their own homes. They're not, generally

speaking, living in old folk's homes. Some of the ideas we have

about two new sets of pensioners are has already kind about it did.

It is like we are wedded to our own grandparents were and we have not

updated yet to think about ourselves. My mother lived in about

three or four houses in her life and that was quite exceptional

because she moved a lot. I can't keep track of how many different

living arrangements I have had. When I'm older, I would be more

flexible. I would consider a different kind of arrangement and I

would want them for me to choose. The potential crisis?

I think lot of people have not made provisions for all data. I agree

with Lesley that the idea of what all changes is different now. I

read something about of the Government... That is what I wanted

to ask. We say crisis, but the state pension age for women is

already increasing and from 2020 it will start increasing the on 65 for

both. Doesn't that have a huge effect on public finances?

expectation is that someone who was 19 now might not get the state

pension until they're 77, if current trends are extrapolated

onwards. I think there is a huge implications the state pension but

also for people who have not made their own pension arrangements.

am interested in your take on this. When you look at the effect of

raising a state pension age, it makes this crisis you describe

suddenly seemed a lot less severe. It is all possible. I am saying we

should not be utterly pessimistic but there is a great deal to be

done. The difficulty is that... on the issue of equity, there has

been all sorts of talk recently that supposedly the baby-boomer

generation have grabbed all their money -- all the money for

themselves and it is terribly unfair on the younger generation,

but I assume that the quid pro quo is that of the raised their

retirement age, people who are 19 now it might well exist -- expect

to live till around 110. It is not one-sided. And then that they have

to pay for their retirement and they will not be able to say

anything in the meantime because the elderly have used the money up.

So the deeper problems. If someone has also died BT's or breast cancer

or prostate cancer, people are going to live a for a very long

time. Is that such a problem? There must be ways round that. I am

curious about this idea of inter- generational blamed. Is there any

meaningful sense in which you think young people do have a right to

feel resentful about a baby boomer generation who love spent all the

money and have also put us in that debt for future years. I think they

may feel resentful of the see people who were 65 getting a

pension at that age and they are told they cannot expect to get one

until their perhaps BT but they have to start paying for it now.

wonder, Lesley, or whether there is a class issue hidden in here. There

must be many people know who were younger who will inherit houses

from their parents worth half-a- million, who knows, a million

pounds. Which immediately widens the gap between that younger

generation person and a younger generation person who inherits

nothing. In a way that did not happen a generation ago. In that

sense, I am curious as to whether you think what is being called a

generation problem could actually be a surrogate for actually an

inner quality problems. Why do not think of something a matter to

them? If we do have the next generation be more productive, let

us help them. Let us put a kindergarten in so women can be

part of the work force and let us make sure that early years is in,

because that is kids the best capability in the rest of their

lives. I would say that if we cannot do much, and it will be hard

to repatriate wealth between generations because the old -- the

older generation will not give it up, we can make sure that our

spending is tilted to give the next generation will -- the next -- a

better experience of work. That is a shift in a relation mate, and by

saying to the state that we now need to make sure that we had the

provisions for the working age population that allows them to do

the heavy lifting. Do you think we may have to give up the whole

concept of free provision of pensions, nursing care, health

care? As this problem gets worse? do not think it is just that we

will, I think it is that they should. I think Lesley is talking

about building personal capital and the need to change the institutions

so that we can build personal capital. What has happened is that

the state has run as out of money and a better way of going about it

is to try and personalise the way that we look after ourselves during

their lives... But what do you mean by that? Are you talking about

privatising the whole lot or are you talking about a social

insurance scheme? I think that the word privatising does not help. I

got personalising. I would like to see the contingent debt put to one

side and then let the young people free. I would like everyone who is

16 and over it to be allowed to keep their national insurance and

put it in a pot for them and they can work from there. Some people

hate this because it sounds like privatisation, it is

personalisation. It allows it -- allows us to take an centres on

ourselves to have something to look after us. A free society should

allow us to build up personal capital. The other side of that is

that surely if you want to go about creating a war of the generations,

what are we to do it would be to say to young people, you have to

say it -- you have to pay was of taxes that are taking to pay for

old people, but you're not going to get any of the things that they pay.

I think the interesting point made there is that people need to feel

more engaged with the idea of pensions. People feel that they

have no control over it because they pay money into something and

are constantly told that they are not getting any map -- any money

back. Unless you are lucky enough to pay into a company pension

scheme, what is the plight as we to put this? The British pension

industry has not recovered itself in glory when it comes to private

pensions. People feel disengaged because successive governments have

changed pension policy. We are now in a situation where people are

starting to benefit from their parents' homes and money passing

down the generations. Pension planning is not just about this

thing called a pension, it is about looking at all sorts of different

types of assets and capital. I am curious as to your thoughts on

personalising this. I think it is that if we think about things that

are clever light currently a lot of tenements have older people living

in the ground floor. As we have more older people, we need to have

people living on other floors. We need to think about retro fitting

so we can put lifts in. It is things that they give people more

choice. Thank you all very much. There says. Timebomb of old age.