The committee said the ‘gift of longer life’ could to lead to a series of crises unless all political parties addressed the issue.
England will see a 50% rise in the number of over 65s and a 100% increase in over 85s between 2010 and 2030, the report said
Peers found the current model of health and social care provision is failing older people now and is inappropriate to care well for the many more older people there will be with chronic health conditions.
They warned the National Health Service will have to transform to deal with the very large increases in demand for and costs of health and social care.
Lord Filkin, chairman of the committee, said:”We need government to support the choices each of us makes for our longer lives: people must be better informed and enabled to get a better idea of the income they may get in retirement from their pension savings; they should be able to work later if they wish to do so.”
Peers are calling for the government to set out in a White Paper how health and social care services and pension arrangements must change to cope with an ageing population.
They recommend all political parties consider the wider implications of the ageing society in their manifestos for the 2015 election.
Lord Filkin added: “This is not a distant issue; our population is older now and will get more so over the next decade. The public are entitled to an honest conversation about the implications.”
According to Hargreaves Lansdown, only a third of private sector workers are participating in a workplace pension and while auto-enrolment is set to address participation rates, the actual amounts being saved still lag far below a satisfactory level.
Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “We can’t allow people to sleepwalk towards an inadequate retirement. We have to encourage them to make good decisions about how much they save, the balance between their pensions and other financial commitments, when they can afford to retire and how they draw their retirement income.
“We can fix these problems but it won’t happen unless the Government, the pensions industry and individuals all accept their responsibility to make it happen.”
