A £10,000 payment should be given to all young adults when they reach the age of 25, while pensioners should be taxed more, a new report into intergenerational fairness in the UK has suggested.

The Resolution Foundation has said that these drastic measures are needed to better fund the NHS and maintain social cohesion, with the foundation chairman Lord Willetts stating that the contract between the young and old had “broken down”.

Willetts said that without action, younger people would become “increasingly angry” and argued that young people were being locked out of the housing market and that older people were concerned about the demands of healthcare.

The foundation’s intergenerational commission report calls for an NHS levy of £2.3bn paid for by increased national insurance contributions by those over the age of 65, while all young people should receive a £10,000 windfall at the age of 25 to put towards a property deposit, start a business or improve their education.

The report proposed raising the funds by abolishing inheritance tax and replacing it with a lifetime limit for recipients of £125,000 before tax kicks in, which in turn would raise £5bn, it is estimated.

Furthermore, the report called for the scrapping of the council tax system, instead replacing it with a new property tax, raising more money from wealthier homeowners, with the proceeds being used to halve stamp duty for first-time buyers.

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