Yahoo Finance Britain is not having enough children, says father-of-six Jacob Rees-Mogg
Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned the state pension age will have to rise because people in Britain are not having enough children.
The former Business Secretary claimed the current pensions system was unsustainable as citizens “are not having enough children to support it”.
It comes as an independent report on the state pension age by Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, published on Thursday, recommended state pension spending should be capped at 6pc of gross domestic product.
It currently accounts for 4.8pc of GDP, but is forecast to rise to 8.1pc in just five decades.
A 6pc limit would mean that the state pension age would have to increase to 69 between 2046 and 2048, the report found.
Mr Rees-Mogg, who has six children, tweeted: “The retirement age must rise, we are not having enough children to afford the current system.”
Experts fear the proposed move could pave the way for a state pension age of over 70 for younger workers.
Speaking on his GB News programme last night, he said: “Demographics are very important. The number of working people in relation to the number retired has been decreasing steadily – and we cannot afford the level of pensions we currently have as we haven’t got enough working people to pay for them.”
The MP for North East Somerset, 53, admitted in 2021 that he would like to have more children.
Addressing the UK’s low birth rate, Mr Rees-Mogg said that he and then Prime Minister Boris Johnson were “leading by example in this area”.
He added: “I would be jolly keen to lead by further example but I think Mrs Rees-Mogg is not so keen.”
However, official figures show that the number of births has started to rise already.
Data published by the Office for National Statistics today showed there were 824,983 conceptions for women of all ages in 2021 – the first increase in six years.
Sian Bradford, the senior research officer in child health at the ONS, said “restrictions and lockdowns may have affected behaviours”.
She added: “We can see that the number of conceptions in England and Wales has increased for the first time since 2015 and was at a record high for women aged 30 to 34 years, and for women aged 40 and over.”
