HC Deb 16 May 1972 vol 837 cc228-9
14. Mr. Thomas Cox

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he last met representatives of retired pensioners' organisations.

Mr. Prior

Officials of my Department, on my behalf, met representatives of pensioners' organisations on two occasions last year.

Mr. Cox

In the light of answers already given in the Chamber this afternoon, coupled with the deep concern expressed by pensioners at their recent conference in the Isle of Man about the Government's inability to stabilise food prices, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the long-delayed and totally inadequate pension increase, when it finally arrives in October, will be meaningless to many retired people? Is not this a matter of concern to him, or is he concerned only to continue to insult pensioners by telling them to shop around?

Mr. Prior

What the Opposition are intent upon is to back every wage claim and then to grumble about every price increase. As regards pensioners, the first point to be made is that we are the Government who have announced an increase in pension each year. The pension in October will have risen by 35p in the £, against an increase in the cost of living at the moment of about 20.1 per cent.; and there is no doubt that, after the next increase in October, there will still be a considerable increase in the pension in real terms.

Mr. Rost

Have any pensioners thanked the Minister, as they have thanked me at my surgeries, for the Government's stand against inflationary wage claims?

Mr. Prior

No, but I hope that they are castigating the Opposition.

Mr. Buchan

I must again ask the Minister to recognise that many people will regard his reference to wage claims in relation to old-age pensioners as grossly insulting. Will he keep two matters in mind: first, that old-age pensioners pay a higher proportion of their income out on food than does any other group in the community; second, that the cost he envisages for our entry into the Community, with its common agricultural policy, will mean the removal of £500 million from lower-paid wage earners and pensioners, giving it either to European farmers or to the wealthy in this country? Those are two good reasons why the right hon. Gentleman should do something to persuade his right hon. Friend to act on the pensions front.

Mr. Prior

There is nothing more insulting to old-age pensioners than an Opposition decrying every price increase while at the same time supporting every wage increase. Old-age pensioners have far more sense than to be gulled by that sort of publicity. As for the rest of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I strongly dispute the last figure which he gave.