asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the latest estimates for the cost of reducing the retirement age for men to 64, 63, 62, 61 and 60 years, respectively.

On the assumption that the patern of retirement among men in the five years following the new pension ages would be the same as the present pattern amongst men aged 65 to 70 and that two-thirds(¹) of the jobs vacated by men in employment retiring earlier were filled by persons on the unemployment register, the net cost of central Government funds in 1979–80, at average rates for the year, would be in the order of:

Reduction of age to	Cost £ million
64	200
63	500
62	700
61	900
60	1,200

However, with the success of the Government's economic policies and a return to full employment, when there would be no significant job replacement by persons on the unemployment register, these costs would rise considerably. To give some indication of this, if the effect of job replacement on the above calculations were disregarded, the costs in 1979–80 would be of the order of:

Reduction of age to	Cost £ million
64	500
63	1,100
62	1,600
61	2,100
60	2,700

These figures take account of the net cost to the national insurance fund, the loss of national insurance surcharge, National Health Service, redundancy fund and maternity pay funds income, a broad estimate of the loss of income tax revenue and a saving in supplementary benefits.(