Where are all the tax revenues going?

We'll have to agree to differ then, but the facts are there. The state pension and benefits for the elderly take a higher percentage of the national income than they ever have. The fact that the elderly are fitter and more active (and not dead) is because they have better healthcare than ever before, but at a cost.

My grandparents died when they got old and ill. Neither of my grandfathers reached pension age. My mother is still alive, but she costs the NHS a fortune, as did my father in the years before his death.

Thank you daphnedill
Yes, I agree to differ and accept your evidence which is probably correct, however in addition to statistical evidence (easily manipulated) I do also look at the indirect benefit to the economy that older people contribute, all the childcare, all of the voluntary work, all of the 'bank of mum and dad' all of the tax on savings the list is almost endless.
All of these contributions are never evaluated in financial terms and factored into statistics, we generally are only made aware of the cost and not the benefit of the ageing population.

JN, I don't think I've made any judgements about whether it's right or not to spend more on the elderly, but the fact is that's where much of the money is going.

Here are some facts:

1 Public spending as a % of GDP has remained relatively stable since the end of WW2.

2 Non-pension social spending has fluctuated since 1970, but is now back to the level of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Ironically, it peaked during the Thatcher years.

3 Defence spending has remained relatively stable throughout the 20th century and early 21st century (apart from both world wars) and is declining.

4 Here are some figures for the cost of the state pension as a % of GDP:

1921 - 2.25%
1945 - 2.2%
1961 - 3'1%
1968 '- 3.9%
1973 - 4%
1981 - 5%
1993 - 5.2%
1998 - 6%
2001 - 7%
2010 - 8%
2013 - 8.8%

5 Apart from social care, the other area where public spending has increased dramatically is healthcare. Average spending for retired households is nearly double that for non-retired households: in 2007/08 the average value of NHS services for retired households was £5,200 compared with £2,800 for non-retired. The Department of Health estimates that the average cost of providing hospital and community health services for a person aged 85 years or more is around three times greater than for a person aged 65 to 74 years.

www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/past_spending

The point I'm trying to make is that if we want to spend money on healthcare and pensions, somebody has to pay for it. Either we could increase GDP, but unfortunately the global financial situation and a policy of austerity has killed that or we could tax people more according to their means, but we've seen a policy of taxing wealthier people less. Therefore, the only possible outcome is to cut public services. Pensions have been ring-fenced, so the cuts have had to be made elsewhere - hence all the cuts to libraries, social care, day centres, Sure Start, subsidised leisure centres, etc etc. This, of course, affects poorer pensioners more than wealthier ones, so it's not just a young versus elderly issue, but poor versus rich.

I am not trying to be antagonistic daphnedill I do appreciate and am enjoying your informative input.
As you mention pensions have been ring fenced. Do you think that pensions should be included as part of welfare payments?
My thoughts are that they should not as essentially a pension (for those who worked) is the same as an insurance policy (hence National Insurance), that you pay premiums into, others contributing may benefit, but at the end of the day when you need to make a claim it is there for you.
If such as flood victims claims for insurance were rejected on the basis that their premiums had been paid out to previous claimants there would be outrage, I wonder why it seems to be a theme to some that today's pensioners are not entitled?
Therefore I think that pensions should not be included as a welfare payment and not be charged against GDP as it negatively biases the figures.

I don't think it matters where pensions appear on the government's balance sheet. The figures are still the same. I suspect the government includes them there so it can quote an astronomically high figure for 'social spending', as Stephen Crabb has done just recently.

Before the last election, the Conservatives said they were going to reduce the welfare bill by £12 billion, which looked like a saving of about 6%. However, the actual cuts to non-pension benefits have been more than double that, because the total figure included pensions, which are ring-fenced.

I would be quite interested to know how National Insurance income is actually distributed. NI was originally supposed to cover pensions, health, unemployment and all other benefits such as child benefit/family allowance. Governments have always been very cagey about publishing those figures.

I don't understand this sentence

"Therefore I think that pensions should not be included as a welfare payment and not be charged against GDP as it negatively biases the figures."

GDP doesn't pay for pensions - taxes and NI do. Where do you think the money should come from? Pensions have never been put in a fund like insurance contributions. There is virtually no correlation between what people receive and what they've paid in. There is NO fund apart from what current taxpayers contribute.

From a Telegraph article on the history of govt. pensions:
"Second Age: pensions start to grow up

The modern universal compulsory state pension did not arrive with its "shining morning face" until 1948. The 1942 Beveridge Report envisaged a social insurance scheme, designed not to provide a comfortable income in retirement, but a safety net against destitution.

However, as a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) points out, the insurance-based system envisaged by Beveridge was never implemented, because it could not provide for the millions of older workers, many of whom had fought in two world wars. It failed to offer them sufficient time to build up a fund for themselves. "
So the National Insurance contributions that we paid when working weren't really insurance, they went into the govt. coffers and were used for many other things.

daphnedill you quoted pensions as a % of GDP, I do understand GDP and know that our national debt accounts for around 38% of GDP, one of the highest in the world.

Apologies the 38% debt figure was 2005 data it is currently running at 85% GDP!!