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Generation's future 'mortgaged'

30/10/2007

Britain is in danger of "mortgaging the future of a generation", a report has warned today.

It claims that 18 to 34-year-olds are being treated with "indifference… inaction… [and] neglect" in the UK, while other western countries react to their ageing populations.

Thinktank Reform, which conducted the study, claims that the average graduate will face a tax burden of 49 per cent by the time of the 2012 London Olympics.

The report says that while the US has in the last year recognised the need to protect young people from rising healthcare, pensions and borrowing costs, the UK has gone the other way.

Nick Bosanquet, consultant director of Reform at professor of health policy at Imperial College London, criticised the British government for its pre-Budget report and comprehensive spending review, claiming that the 18 per cent rate of capital gains tax will only help owners of second homes and buy-to-let investors.

"Protecting today's and tomorrow's young people is a defining modern political issue," he said.

And Reform director Andrew Haldenby added: "The government fails to face the facts: high taxation and high public spending impose massive burdens upon both young people and the economy."

Mr Haldenby, who likened young people to "galley slaves in the public spending empire of the baby boomers", urged the government to create an investment margin that would measure training, healthcare and retirement costs for the next generation.