HC Deb 02 December 1963 vol 685 cc759-61
13. Mr. W. Hamilton

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance when he intends to make a statement on retirement pensions and other National Insurance benefits.

18. Mr. Milne

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what changes Her Majesty's Government intend making in old-age pensions and other similar payments arising from recent increases in the cost of living.

19. Mr. Frank Allaun

asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will grant an increase of £1 a week to those on retirement pension or on National Assistance.

Mr. Wood

I have no statement to make except to remind the hon. Gentlemen that National Insurance benefits now have a higher real value than ever before.

Mr. Hamilton

Who will make the statement when it is made—the right hon. Gentleman or the Prime Minister? Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to live on the old-age pension?

Mr. Wood

I have not said whether or not a statement will be made, so it would be wholly hypothetical if I said who was going to make it. As for the retirement pension, I have not had any case brought to my notice where a pensioner is having to live on it alone.

Mr. Milne

When will the right hon Gentleman agree to stop juggling with statistics and deal a little more sympathetically with this matter? Does he realise that the weightings in the cost of living index are heavily against the old-age pensioners? Will he have a look at the question of food and fuel in relation to pensioners and then tell us what he is prepared to do about it? Is he not aware that it is obvious in all our constituencies that there is a considerable amount of hardship which should be dealt with more sympathetically?

Mr. Wood

I will examine any information that the hon. Gentleman has to suggest that the means of measuring these things, which have been used for a very long time, are in some way basically faulty, but I have not had brought to my notice information which convinces me that the present is not the best way we have so far discovered of measuring these things.

Mr. Allaun

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour Party is committed to a substantial and immediate increase and that this will force the Government to promise some increase before the General Election?

Mr. Wood

I understand that Labour is so committed, but what the party has not told us is what it will cost.

Miss Lee

Will the right hon. Gentleman look again at an earlier reply in which he said that he had not had brought to his notice any case where a pensioner was living on "it" alone—meaning the retirement pension? Does he think that the type of pensioner who is over-shy, muddled or too proud to ask for National Assistance or for assistance from voluntary organisations of any kind is the type of pensioner he will hear about?

Mr. Wood

What I have been trying to do—in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden)—is to discourage the reluctance which I understand people feel, but which is so unnecessary, to approach the National Assistance Board. The Board exists—and Parliament has put it in a position to be able to do so—to help pensioners to supplement their means if they are inadequate for them to live on.