Elimination of Poverty in Old Age Etc (Hansard, 1 December 1987)

§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to eliminate poverty in old age. The Bill is important and timely, because there is much hypocrisy in the House and in society: we pretend to treat old people well at Christmas but ignore them for the rest of the year. The Bill is designed to bring forward a comprehensive series of measures to treat old people in the decent and civilised way that they deserve, rather than leaving them to the poverty and misery in which so many of them are forced to live now.
Last winter was one of unparalleled cold and misery for many old people. More than 200 deaths from hypothermia were registered at the registrar general of births, deaths and marriages. That figure grossly underestimated the real horror of that cold winter, because many old people who died from hypothermia had their deaths ascribed to something else on their death certificates.
We have a duty to listen to the pensioners in the winter and all the year round, to use our positions as Members of Parliament to try to improve the conditions of elderly people, rather than ignoring them, as the House has done for too long. There are approximately 10 million pensioners in this country and the number is increasing. If one believes the figures produced by the Department of Health and Social Security, their average weekly income is about £83, although I find it hard to discover pensioners in my constituency who have that sort of income. More than two-thirds of the average pensioner's income comes from state benefits. For working-class pensioners, 100 per cent, comes from state benefits, because they do not have the cushion of private incomes and expensive private insurance schemes that have been taken out during their working lives.
The whole trend of Government policy has been towards reducing the level of old-age pensions—in real terms—compared with other benefits. Thus, there is the serious problem of elderly people being forced to pay ever-increasing costs, because the retail price index for pensioners goes up faster than for the rest of the community. As a consequence, they suffer poverty. A good example is the change in household expenditure by pensioners. Since 1970, because of an increase in rents, expenditure on housing has gone up by 6 per cent. That has been paid for by old people reducing by 6 per cent, their expenditure on food, with consequent damage to their health. Until 1979, the value of the pension was linked to average earnings.

§ Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)
What does the hon. Gentleman's Bill do?

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Hon. Members must not intervene when a ten-minute Bill motion is being moved.

§ Mr. Corbyn
I have tried five times in the past to introduce Bills about pensioners and have always been met by the most violent sedentary interruptions by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). I ask him to be honest with the House for once and to vote against my Bill.
The link between earnings and pensions was broken in 1975. That means that in real terms the value of the old-age pension has declined and is now only 17 per cent. of 766 gross average earnings of male people in work. That percentage is one of the lowest in Europe. Between 1974 and 1979 there was an increase of 20 per cent, in real terms in old-age pensions. Since 1979, they have hardly gone up at all in real terms. If the earnings link had been maintained, single pensioners would now be £9.20 a week better off than they have beer since the Tory Government were elected. In western Europe, Britain's pensioners are among the lowest paid. As I have said, the British pension is 17 per cent, of gross average earnings. In France, the pension is over 50 per cent, of average earnings.
In eight simple ways, my Bill seeks to provide a framework for giving pensioners a decent living standard. First, it would fix old-age pensions for couples at half average industrial earnings, and for single people it would be a third. Those figures were put forward by the National Pensioners Convention and v/ere supported and accepted by many hon. Members when they were lobbied by pensioners in the past. If they support those figures, I invite them to support my Bill.
Secondly, my Bill would require central Government to appoint a Minister responsible for the co-ordination of policy on pensioners. Thirdly, it would require local authorities to produce a comprehensive annual report about their policies on pensioners and on the conditions of pensioners in their communities. Fourthly, every health authority would also be asked to do that.
Fifthly, the present anomalous system means that in some parts of the country where there are foresighted Labour local authorities there are concessionary transport schemes — free bus passes. They do not exist in some parts of Britain and the Bill would make them a national responsibility and they would be paid for nationally so that old people would not be forced to go through the present patchwork quilt arrangement. My sixth point is one of the most important. It is about the introduction of a flat-rate winter heating allowance instead of the nonsensical system of waiting for the cold to run from Monday to Sunday, and then if it is sufficiently cold a rebate is paid in arrears. Last winter that resulted in many old people living in homes that were too cold because they could not afford to heat them. If they did get any aid, it was far too late.
My seventh point concerns the abolition of standing charges on gas, electricity and telephones for elderly people. They are paying about £250 million a year towards the profits of the gas industry and those profits will be about £1.5 billion. Standing charges should be cancelled, unit prices maintained and the cost of the standing charge should be taken from the profits of the gas board or the electricity board — if it ends up being privatised. They could well afford to pay for that rather than forcing old people to live in cold and misery throughout the winter. Finally, the Bill would prohibit the cutting off of gas and electricity in any pensioner household.
In short, the Bill would radically change the attitude of our society towards pensioners. It would remove from them the fear of poverty and cold in the winter, and they would at last begin to be treated in the decent, civilised way in which they should be treated. It is up to the House not to wait for the cold of this winter and the deaths from hypothermia, but to act now to redress the poverty in which so many old people live by bringing forward a comprehensive measure to give pensioners the decent, civilised existence for which they have worked, creating wealth for us to enjoy—a life that they deserve.
767 I very much hope that the House will support the Bill.