Lord Frost suggests the state pension age should be raised to 75 to shrink public spending
Asked whether it should go up to 70 years old, he said: ’75, it’s quite a lot higher.’
He added: ‘People are much healthier than they used to be and I think it does need to go up. The big blocks of spending are health, pension and benefits. If you don’t tackle those you’re not really tackling anything.
‘I do think you need to do something also like freezing – or coming close to freezing – the public sector health budget and finding a sort of socially just and accepted way that future spending needs to go to the private sector in some way otherwise it’s just going to absorb sort of half of the budget before too long.’
He also hit out at Rishi Sunak’s ‘managerial’ style of leadership.
Urging ministers to make cuts to public spending and taxes and go for growth, he acknowledged that this would require making changes to the state pension.
Ms Truss was backed by former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage, who attended the event, saying: “I absolutely 100 per cent believe in her.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has, however, ruled out tax cuts at present.
Former cabinet members Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel also spoke at the rally, stimulating speculation that a cabal of Boris Johnson supporters is mobilising against Mr Sunak’s leadership.
At another event, right-wing culture warriors rallied to demand that Britain leave the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).
He said: ‘I do think that the honest truth is that the pension age is going to have to go up quite a long way to solve this problem [of reducing public expenditure].
‘That seems to me the best way of getting out of it in the medium term.’
‘You always knew that with Mrs Thatcher, what she wanted to create and we’re not getting that.
‘I would also like us to commit to a tax cut before the next election and the spending cuts that go with it.’
The state pension age is currently 66. In March, ministers delayed a decision on when a rise in the state pension age should kick-in.
