State Pension (Hansard, 22 July 1991)

§ 14. Mr. Andrew Bowden
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received on the level of the state pension.

§ Miss Widdecombe
In recent months, we have received several representations on the level of the state pension from individual pensioners and from pensioners' organisations.

§ Mr. Bowden
Does my hon. Friend accept that although the state pension has more than kept pace with inflation, the great difficulty is that 750,000 pensioners receive only the basic old age pension and do not claim any income support? Will she see what steps can be taken to ensure that more of them accept their entitlement and claim income support?

§ Miss Widdecombe
All those who are entitled to income support should be given the necessary information. Even those who are unable to claim income support, not because they have failed to do so but because they are ineligible, are entitled to claim benefits such as housing benefit, community charge benefit and help towards national health service prescriptions. That fact should also be made widely known.

§ Mr. Tony Banks
What would be the pension for a couple and for an individual if the Government had not broken the link between pensions and earnings?

§ Miss Widdecombe
It would be substantially higher, and the value of pensioners' incomes would be substantially lower. The Labour party practised a link with earnings, but pensioners' incomes rose by only 3 per cent. During our term in office, pensioners' incomes have risen by 33 per cent. It is much more valuable to pensioners that their overall income should rise rather than that the state pension should be linked to something theoretical, which would cost employees and employers £7 in national insurance, would not benefit less well-off people and would not result in an overall rise in incomes.

§ Mr. Holt
Nevertheless, as the Government have pledged to equalise the state pension for men and women, would not one small step in that direction be for prescriptions to be free for over 60-year-old men as they are for women? Will my hon. Friend make representations so that that small category of people, whom I shall be joining in 10 days' time, will not have to pay prescription charges?

§ Miss Widdecombe
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his impending entitlement. We are considering all aspects of equal treatment and we have those matters under review. Any retired person who is on income support or is just a little above it is entitled to claim help towards NHS prescriptions. As I have said, we are taking steps to ensure that that fact is widely known.

§ Mr. Meacher
Will the hon. Lady, who suddenly seems to have forgotten her facts, confirm that if Labour's link with earnings had been maintained, the single pension 746 today would be £13 per week higher and the married couple's pension £21 per week higher? Will she also confirm that as a result of the abolition of that link, the saving at the expense of pensioners is no less than £26 billion? Will she reconsider the facts that she gave a moment ago? The state retirement pension under the previous Labour Government rose by 20 per cent. in real terms, whereas under the present Government it has risen by 2 per cent. Finally, will she confirm that the reason why occupational pensioners have done well in the past year is mainly the state earnings-related pension scheme, and that a single person retiring today on SERPS, which Labour introduced in 1975, would get a SERPS pension of an extra £40 a week?

§ Miss Widdecombe
Almost all the hon. Gentleman's facts are wrong. He did not manage to get right even his basic question on the increases that there would be if we had maintained the earnings link, although I must give him credit for having got it wrong in our favour. The actual change would have been £64.80 for the single person and £103.75 basic for the couple. It is not true that pensioners' incomes have fallen. We have increased expenditure on benefits for pensioners by 29 per cent. The hon. Gentleman, whose party not only failed to pay the Christmas bonus but ruined pensioners' savings through inflationary policies, is on very weak ground. Why go back to a link which did not benefit pensioners because the 20 per cent. rise was wholly eroded by the overall decrease of 3 per cent? Pensioners' savings fell, the value of their pensions fell and the value of their incomes fell—that is the hon. Gentleman's record and it is not surprising that he is ashamed to talk about it.