HC Deb 28 April 1972 vol 835 cc2005-15

Order for Second Reading read.

3.28 p.m.

Mr. Robert Edwards (Bilston)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill does not deal with the whole question of retirement pension but concentrates on the question of welfare. Before dealing with these points, however, may I express my delight that two hon. Members this afternoon were successful in getting their Bills towards the Statute Book. I hope I shall be as fortunate, but I have my doubts.

The other day I was reading a book translated from the French about old people. It contained a story about a French farmer, a very materialistic man, who, when his father was old and feeble and had no contribution to make to the work on the farm, dismissed him from the family. The poor old man had to live among the cows and took his meals from a wooden trough. This went on for some time until the farmer saw his two children making a wooden trough. He asked them what they were making and the boy said "We are making a wooden trough for you, Dad, for when you are too old to work on the farm." The farmer soon had his father back in the community of the home because he saw in the treatment he meted out to his old and feeble father, who was full of pain and weakness, his own future.

It also reminds me of the story of Buddha when he was a young prince. He was confined to his father's family, and on one of the rare occasions when he escaped from the palace he met an old and crippled man. The man was full of pain and weariness, and Buddha said that the treatment of this old man was the pity of the world and that in that old man he saw his future.

The facilities that we create today for our 8 million elderly citizens are, with some limitations, the facilities that we create for ourselves. They are not for us personally, because we are fortunate in our society, but for the overwhelming majority of elderly people in retirement who live in poverty and often loneliness.

This modest Bill is about such people. It looks at the problem of what will happen as the number of retired people increases until such people comprise the greater part of our population. Today 20 per cent. of our producing population is retired. By 1980 40 per cent. of the producers in our society will be retired. This will create new social and economic problems for the country.

Mr. Timothy Raison (Aylesbury)

I am interested in the word "producer". Does the hon. Gentleman mean people actually producing or people capable of producing if everyone above the age of 16 had a job?

Mr. Edwards

That is the very point to which I was coming. I welcome the intervention. In our society we need the accumulated knowledge and experience of those people whom we are losing because of our arbitrary method of retirement. The retirement age should be flexible. The Bill establishes facilities so that there may be early retirement in the heavy industries where there is high unemployment, where people are weary of work and want to be free from discipline, and so that those who have great skills and are physically and mentally fit may continue their work because society needs them and they want to work for society.

It is a shattering blow for a skilled man suddenly to realise that he has to retire. His whole world falls apart. It is a break with the industrial environment which is often his social environment and, certainly on this side of the House, his political environment. He leaves and receives a gold watch and, if he is fortunate, a little cheque. He goes home to the loneliness which plagues the old people of this country even more than poverty.

A special Government Department is needed to co-ordinate the work being done so magnificently for the care of the elderly. The young volunteers in my constituency made a survey in one ward and discovered that about 20 per cent. of the old people interviewed had no understanding of their rights. Many were too independent even to claim them, but a high percentage did not even know what those rights were. There is something wrong with our communications. We need specialised offices to convey this information to those in need.

The survey also proved that about 20 per cent. of those interviewed owned their own homes. There are over 1 million old people living in their own homes in retirement. Some of the retired people who own and live in their own houses are living in the worst squalor. That is a surprising thing to say, perhaps, but it is true. They still live in the houses they have lived in all their married life. Their children leave home, one of the two dies and the other is left alone in a big house too expensive to maintain in good repair and keep warm in winter. Such houses are some of the worst slums in the country, although they are owned by the old people living in them.

We need a lot more information about this problem. The Secretary of State the other day at a conference said that a very large percentage of those owning their own homes and in retirement had no knowledge of the sums they could get from local authorities to repair them. All too often, some cheap builder comes along with ladder, bucket of sand and bucket of water, and offers to do the roof or repair a window and the poor old folk have to pay a bill of hundreds of pounds when they could get assistance from the local authority with repairs.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith)

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is not alleging that the Government have not made great efforts to publicise these benefits. Large numbers of advertisements have appeared in newspapers, and, of course, a great deal of advice goes out from citizens' advice bureaux and other worthy bodies.

Mr. Edwards

I do not deny that a great deal has been done, but it is not enough. The weakness of our methods of education and propaganda is the lack of machinery to co-ordinate the work of all these institutions. That is why I suggest a special Department dealing with the problems of the elderly. One of its functions would be to see that a record was kept in each locality of the retired people, who would be visited and given the information they need about repairs and the grants they could get and all the other facilities which exist locally and which hundreds of thousands of them are not enjoying.

Hundreds of thousands of our old people are in hospitals being treated as chronically sick. They are in institutions and will die there unless something is done. They should be at home among their own people. They should be living in the community. They should not have to die in an institution. Why are they there? It is because we have no medical services capable of visiting them regularly in their own homes. We should create these facilities. It will cost money, of course, but we are a very rich country.

We have £11,800 million of investments abroad, bringing in about £800 million a year. This massive asset was created by the generation now retired. It was their industrial intelligence, their skill, their sweat and their labour which created this great mountain of wealth, which they never properly shared. It was an accumulation partly paid for by unpaid wages, unpaid pensions and high consumer prices. But I do not want to be too controversial on the economics of a modest Bill of this nature, and I must not let my thoughts flow too freely. I merely say that some machinery should be established to enable old people who are treated in our hospitals as chronically sick to be brought home among their own folk. If there are facilities for regular home treatment, there will be no necessity for them to die in institutions.

There are about 250,000 dedicated sons and daughters and daughters-in-law and sons-in-law looking after retired, chronically sick people in their own homes. They are fine, dedicated people who need some relief from the tension and drudgery of looking after aged sick parents. Local authorities should be obliged to establish hostel facilities so that for at least three weeks a year these fine people would be able to have a holiday.

That is not an enormous demand. There is a demand in the country that those looking after their own aged parents should receive an income. I am suggesting not that, but merely that facilities should be created to give them at least some relief from the dedicated responsibilities that they have so willingly accepted.

Mr. Dudley Smith

I do not wish to prolong the hon. Gentleman's speech for him, but the Bill has some important provisions, particularly about the age of retirement, that I should like him to discuss more fully.

Mr. Edwards

The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening, because I dealt with that problem earlier. I said that unless we made retirement more flexible we should be faced with enormous economic and social problems. I want us to be flexible in both ways. In the heavy industries such as mining and chemicals and heavy engineering, where the work is heavy men and women reaching retirement age may not be able to make a useful contribution and may wish to retire, retirement age should be lowered on the understanding that they would get a pension and that retirement would not interfere with their industrial pension rights. British industry is already doing this extensively in order to cushion redundancy. Earlier retirement is being encouraged and industrial pensions are being paid.

Mr. Daniel Awdry (Chippenham)

I am sympathetic to the aims of the Bill in many ways, but I am worried about contracts of employment. It is suggested that in future it should be unlawful for a contract of employment to contain a clause providing that employment will come to an end when a person reaches retirement age. It raises considerable legal problems. Would the hon. Gentleman say something about those provisions?

Mr. Edwards

This is not a harsh provision. It challenges the right of an employer to refuse a man continued employment, when he is capable mentally and physically of continuing that employment, without proper consideration of that man's special problems. If the language does not meet the legal requirements, it could be amended in Committee.

Mr. Raison rose—

Mr. Edwards

I did not intend to speak more than briefly so that one or two other hon. Members could participate. I was meeting the Minister's request for more information about the Bill's provisions for retirement. I was arguing that in heavy industries, where there is a demand for early retirement, it should be allowed, but that there was no point in having early retirement unless there was some security, unless a man or a woman had an income permitting a physical hold on life. It is difficult for the overwhelming majority of retired people to talk about serenity in old age and liberty and freedom and leisure, for leisure and freedom are meaningless unless there are the means to enjoy the leisure and take advantage of the freedom.

I suggest that in light industry, clerical work, office work and some light engineering work, where there is a shortage of skilled labour—there is a shortage in many of these types of employment—retirement should not be automatic at 60 years of age for women and 65 for men. If they are mentally and physically fit they should be allowed to continue their employment. I do not suggest that they should be employed full-time, but their retirement should be staggered, so that their wisdom and accumulated knowledge is still available to industry if their employers believe that their kind of skill and knowledge is required.

I must bring my remarks to a close. I hope that this modest Bill will receive sympathetic consideration, as did the two Bills that the House has dealt with previously today. I hope that in this atmosphere of good will and sweet reasonableness the same will apply to this Bill.

3.46 p.m.

Mr. Michael Grylls (Chertsey)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards) on introducing the Bill. There is no doubt that the thought, hope and ambition that he has put into the attempt to improve the lot of the elderly are close to our hearts. Any doubts that I have are focused on the question whether there is need for a separate Bill for the elderly as a body of people. What worries me slightly is the reference to the creation of a public department to assist elderly persons and to extend and improve the services provided by local authorities for elderly persons. I should have thought that it would be much better to try to integrate the social services for our people in one Department rather than cast off the elderly into a separate organisation. That could be very unwise for the future.

I have always taken the strongest exception to compartmentalising people, whether they be old, young or middle-aged. The problem nowadays is that people are too often divided up. I should like to see the young working with the elderly, and not have the elderly dealt with in their own department. I hope that moves to help the elderly will proceed by way of integration, either in age groups or in sections of society.

Many of us will be aware of the great work done by organisations such as Task Force. The hon. Member for Bilston mentioned the youth volunteers and the wonderful work that they do in visiting the elderly. I think particularly of the Task Force organisation in London, under which young people "adopt" elderly persons and regularly visit them once a week on their way to work or coming home from work. I want to encourage that kind of social work.

Some of the Bill's proposals would have a rather divisive effect which would not be in the best interests of the elderly. We are concerned to do what we can for the older people. Our endeavour under the social services should be to try to build up community care for all people—whether handicapped young people or elderly people—who are unable to care for themselves. Therefore we should look at the position in that light.

I am also worried about there not being any retirement age in Clause 6(1). With no disrespect to elderly people in general, I think that this could turn out to be a geriatrics charter. One can imagine the effect on industry and commerce. Not only would it prevent people having any retirement, but it would frustrate those lower down who wished to work their way up and improve their positions. I think it is desirable that there should be a retirement age. I believe that Clause 6 is unduly restrictive and would cause a great deal of trouble. I should have thought that, above all, many Members of Parliament would say that there should be a retirement age for us. I am sure that when the time comes we would welcome it.

Instead of getting hold of an individual Bill like this and slotting elderly people into one organisation, our attention for the good of the elderly, would be better focussed on expanding the services we have which are so good—meals on wheels, home helps and the integration of young people to play their part in helping the elderly. Health visitors are very important in that they play a useful part in helping the elderly.

I return to where I started by sincerely congratulating the hon. Member for Bilston on the thought and the principle involved in introducing the Bill. My doubts are whether this is the best way of helping the elderly. Our attention should be focussed on extending the existing services within our general social services. In that way we would, in the long run, do a better job for the people we all want to try to help.

3.52 p.m.

Mr. Timothy Raison (Aylesbury)

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey (Mr. Grylls), I congratulate the hon. Member Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards) on introducing the Bill. However, I share some of the doubts whether this is the most effective way of bringing help to older people. All Members of Parliament to whom I have spoken take the view that, judged by their "surgeries" and correspondence, the social problems of old people today are greater than those of any other group.

We have heard from organisations like the Child Poverty Action Group a good deal about problems among families. I do not think anybody would dispute that they exist. My experience is that the real or the worst hardship tends to be found among people who nowadays are referred to by the inelegant phrase "senior citizens".

I do not think anybody would doubt the Tightness of concern on our part for the elderly. We as politicians can justly claim to have done a number of useful things for the elderly since we came to power. We have raised pensions and brought in the annual review of pensions which is of great importance. We have introduced the special supplement for pensioners over 80. Although it is a small sum of money, it is of importance in that it recognises that the truly very old have different problems from people we nominally call old simply because they have retired. We all know people of 60 and 65 who are by no means old in the real sense of the word. They simply happen to have reached the statutory age at which retirement pension is paid. We have also brought forward other financial measures.

When introducing the Bill, the hon. Gentleman fairly said that in many cases the problem is not one of finance. The real problems old people face are not so much financial as those of loneliness and usefulness. Old people like to feel that they have something to contribute to society and that society provides the outlets they want if they are to be able to make this contribution. We all know that boredom and the feeling that one does not particularly matter are the real scourge of many old people.

Old people's homes, which are often remarkably good in the sense that they are well run, clean, tidy, well ordered and provide everything one wants in terms of creature comforts, seem to have an emptiness about them which can be very dispiriting. I recall one small but significant point when a doctor said that the degree of incontinence among old people who were entirely looked after was very much greater than among old people who had to care for themselves. In other words, they can reach a stage where there is no apparent purpose in life and they simply give up coping with the most basic necessities or actions of everyday life. I therefore accept that the subject matter of the Bill is of great importance and I am sure it will continue to occupy our time as more of our people pass into the retirement age sector.

My reservations about the Bill concern its details and whether it is designed and calculated to meet the problems which the hon. Member for Bilston accurately set out. My hon. Friend the Member for Chertsey made a very strong general point about the undesirability of setting up separate departments. I am sure he is right in saying that we should not start from the premise that we need special and separate organisations, because that would tend to cut off old people from the rest of society when presumably the object of the exercise is exactly the reverse.

There is an underlying fallacy about the Bill in that respect, and I very much doubt whether having a department for the care of the elderly, as is proposed in Clause 1, would be of any value. People manning the employment services would be inclined to categorise jobs into those suitable for the general run of people and those suitable for the old. Two registers of jobs would be kept, one a general register and the other an old persons register. I cannot believe that the hon. Member for Bilston would think that desirable. Indeed, in Clause 6 he seeks to do the opposite. I have therefore considerable reservations about Clause 1.

The principle in Clause 2 that local authorities should consider the housing needs of old people in their districts is sound. The better local authorities—the great majority of them—do this already. I am aware from my experience in local government that a good deal of attention is paid to this matter. The latter part of the Clause poses some difficulties by seeking to distinguish between houses for old people and houses for the rest of the community. I know that local authorities build certain houses very much with old people in mind. That is not unreasonable. Hardship could be caused by the general notion that there is one sort of house for people when they are young or in middle life and another sort when they are old. Often old people wish to remain in the houses in which they have lived all their lives. Some people argue that there is a wasteful use of housing accommodation because old couples still have three-bedroom or four-bedroom flats or houses. There is a psychological risk in the approach which seems to be implicit in Clause 2.

Clause 3 is entirely sound in its intentions. Clause 4 is right in its intentions. It is simply a question whether the services called for in Clause 4 are already being effectively provided. The Government have recently announced the bringing into force of the 1968 Act. I should have thought that we were moving fairly fast in the right direction. I accept Clause 4. Clause 5 is reasonable.

Clause 6 is undoubtedly the controversial Clause, dealing with the notion that employers should not be prevented from offering jobs to people simply on the ground that they are too old. It seeks to prevent employers terminating jobs on the ground that employers are too old. At present an employer can say "You have reached the age of 65 and you will have to retire." Under this proposal an employer would have to say "We are retiring you not because you are too old but because you are no longer capable." Much greater hardship is involved when a person aged 65 is told that he is no longer capable of performing his job than in telling him that, regrettably, he has reached the company's retiring age or the statutory retirement age and he can no longer remain in employment.

In that respect, Clause 6 would cause considerable harm. My legal friends—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.