Fans of the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column will have enjoyed the recent item concerning Ian Kilmister, better known as Lemmy of heavy-metal band Motörhead. A review had said that, at 63, he was "rocking towards his bus pass like a force 10 gale".
As sharp-eyed readers pointed out, and the column confirmed, Lemmy has in fact been eligible for free bus travel for three years. Whether he has had cause to avail himself of the privilege must be considered doubtful – he lives in Los Angeles – but it would be nice to imagine him returning to the Stoke-on-Trent of his childhood, clambering aboard a number 23 and waving his pass at a disbelieving driver.
Free bus travel for anyone at 60 is one of those universal welfare entitlements that look exceptionally vulnerable in the coming public spending squeeze. The Duke of Westminster is as unlikely as Lemmy to find himself on a number 23, but his alleged £6.5bn wealth will, under present rules, be no barrier to him collecting his pass when he enters his seventh decade in two years' time. A nonsense? Of course.
You can make a similar argument about other universal benefits. In a recent discussion paper, right-leaning thinktank Reform put the cost of "middle-class benefits", including non-universal tax credits, at £31bn a year. It proposed immediate measures to save £14.4bn, of which £1bn would come from restricting bus passes and £3.2bn from ending "pensioner gimmicks" such as the winter fuel allowance and free TV licences.
Such thinking is by no means confined to the right. Indeed, the issue is addressed in a report published yesterday by the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The report, Getting on: wellbeing in later life, argues for measures to improve the welfare of older people including new ways to target support on those who need it most. The snag is, as the report acknowledges, this is much easier said than done.
Take bus passes. Since introduction of the national free travel scheme last year, well-off 60-somethings can go the length of the country for nothing. As the IPPR observes, this may be "good for wellbeing but [is] perhaps a dubious use of resources in such a tight time for public finances". But how to limit the entitlement? Restricting it to low-income people on pension credit would be an obvious way, the report says, but one in three of those eligible fails to claim the credit. A better option would be to have discounted fares for 60-somethings and free passes only at age 70.
As for the winter fuel allowance, the IPPR advocates "progressive universalism": keeping it for all from age 65, but clawing it back through tax for those on higher incomes. Alternatively, it suggests, both the allowance and bus passes could be limited to people aged 75 or over, as with free TV licences, so that the benefits were focused on the age group more likely to be at risk from poverty and ill-health.
This, however, would lose the preventive benefits of supporting the younger old. And as better-off people tend to live longer, the report points out, there would be a perverse effect of conferring more help on the well-to-do. Going further down the road of targeting help on the older old should therefore be resisted, the IPPR concludes.
Plainly this is tricky stuff and, short of Reform-style slashing, there are no simple answers. But the great risk in trying to finesse a solution is that the costs – arranging discount bus fares, taxing back the fuel allowance – would diminish the savings.
Letting Lemmy keep his bus pass, or at least his right to it, may have some merit after all.
• David Brindle is the Guardian's public services editor.
