New stats from ILC UK show that the UK economy is missing out on a potential £109 billion by not doing more to help more older people into employment.

Tap into just one half of that, and the Chancellor’s purported £50 billion black hole disappears.

Achieving that, of course, will be like turning a tanker around, as it will need a major shift in attitudes amongst employers as well as sensible levels of support and incentives from the Government. But when the alternative is higher taxes, and hunting down odd wodges of money stuffed down the back of various sofas, surely it’s worth pursuing?

In related news, the House of Lords is to look at plans to bring unused pension funds and death benefits into the scope of inheritance tax; we also discover the cost of next year’s State Pension rise… and it appears that half of people heading towards retirement don’t actually know how much they’ve saved.

Also in the headlines today: UK care home deals hit a record high, indicating that investors see the sector as a growing market offering good returns. An ageing society is not all bad news for the economy…

Scientists, meanwhile, have been unravelling the mystery of the way our brain ages.

And that’s probably enough excitement for one week. I’m off to Birmingham to talk about why the nation can’t afford NOT to start ageing more healthily. Have a great weekend.

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