Elimination of Poverty in Retirement (Hansard, 3 November 1992)

§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require local authorities and health authorities to monitor the condition of their retired population; to eliminate standing charges on gas, electricity and water; to exempt pensioners from licence charges and telephone rental; to extend pensioners' concessionary fare schemes; to make provision for the calculation of old age pensions by reference to average earnings; and to appoint a Minister with responsibility for retired people. As I am sure you are aware, Madam Speaker, this is the eighth time that I have tried to introduce such a Bill. I have done so because I believe that one measure of the way in which a civilisation treats its people is the way in which it treats its elderly people. We have read press reports today that describe the plight of elderly people who are dying needlessly from hypothermia in the winter. We have also heard the Government's response.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the Government claimed that the average income of retired persons' households had risen by a third since they took office in 1979. We do not hear so much about that now. The Government worked out the figures by adding together occupational pension schemes and the income from shares and other investments accruing to a small minority of pensioner households.

The vast majority of pensioner households rely on the state old-age pension to maintain themselves. They rely on public services to provide themselves with health, housing and transport. In short. they rely on the rest of the community. The tragedy is that, in the past few years, provision by the rest of the community has been woefully inadequate. The Government have also exerted enormous pressure on individuals to invest in their working lives, either in occupational pension schemes—and the Maxwell pension scandal has shown the danger posed by the way in which many such schemes are administered—or in personal portable pension schemes. The performance of those schemes also brings the Government's strategy into question.

The Bill—which is supported by millions of pensioners—asks for something more than that. It asks for a real increase in the state old-age pension. When the Government took office in 1979, pension law—set down by a Labour Government in 1975—stated that, every year, the state old-age pension should be increased in line with the increase in the retail prices index or in line with average earnings, whichever was the higher. In 1980, the Government broke that link, substituting a rejigged RPI which has cost every pensioner in the land around £15 per week. Since the Government took office, £25 billion has been stolen. The value of the state old-age pension as a proportion of average earnings has fallen from just under 21 per cent. to rather less than 16 per cent., and it is set to fall still further.

On top of that, the fact that health authorities around the country are closing hospitals and the centralising of facilities for secondary care in huge general hospitals make it difficult for pensioners to go to those hospitals and to visit relatives there. As local authorities—beset by rent capping and charge capping—are forced to cut services at the behest of a Government dedicated to market forces, it is the old and vulnerable who suffer. It is they who suffer 150 because of cuts in leisure facilities and social services, and, often, the privatisation of the bus services means that they get an inferior public transport system. All those things make life worse for pensioners.

In the rejigging of the retail prices index some years ago the Government succeeded in hiding what I believe to be the true cost for pensioner households of the way in which the retail price system works. The average increase in the retail prices index for the first quarter of this year was 4.1 per cent. for the population as a whole. For a two-person pensioner household it was 6.3 per cent. These figures are taken from the Department of Employment. That shows how pensioners' living standards are consistently falling.

My Bill seeks to make eight points which I believe are within the spirit of those who campaigned for a state old-age pension at the end of the 19th century and gained it initially in the Budget of 1908. They campaigned for society as a whole to care for its retired people and to provide them with a decent standard of living. The eight points that I propose in the Bill are as follows.

The first is the appointment of a Minister for pensioner policy to co-ordinate all aspects of Government policy as they affect the retired population of this country, whether health, housing, social security, transport, education, leisure or the environment.

Further, all local authorities should be required to produce an annual report on the services they are providing for their retired population and to report when they cut services. Many services desperately needed by those not necessarily able to articulate their views to local authorities are at risk of being cut. In London there is a great fear that the pensioners' bus pass will go, as one authority after another tries to get out of operating what is a valuable and important scheme.

Health authorities should be required to report annually on the services that they provide and on the health of their retired people, their life expectancy and the chronic and other conditions from which they suffer. Too many elderly people die from hypothermia; too many are living in damp flats; too many are living a lonely life with nothing to look forward to but premature death when they should be able to look forward to retirement in comfort after a lifetime either in work or at home looking after other people.

The poll tax is now recognised to be a totally iniquitous form of taxation, yet we have a form of poll tax in the standing charges levied on pensioner households for gas, electricity and water. Those charges are greater for those who use the least. The real cost of electricity and gas for a pensioner household is on average 11 per cent. of its weekly income; it is less than 5 per cent. for the rest of the population. The abolition of standing charges, making the extremely profitable private enterprise utilities pay for them instead, would be a major boon for pensioners. Telephone rentals operate in the same way.

Some years ago, in early 1987, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) tried to introduce a Bill to abolish the television licence for pensioner households. The payroll vote was wheeled in in limousines and the Bill was lost. This Bill seeks to achieve what my hon. Friend was trying to do.

The travel scheme operates in some cities but often not in rural areas. We need a national travel scheme. Other countries can afford it and it would allow retired people the chance to travel to see relatives throughout the 151 country. Otherwise, being stuck at home becomes a form of imprisonment, with the moving wallpaper of the television their only comfort.

All that I have suggested would improve the lot of pensioners. But, at the end of the day, it is the level of the state old-age pension that is important. The national pensioners convention has campaigned, many trade unions have campaigned and my own party has campaigned for a much larger state old-age pension. We could afford it in view of the tax handouts that have been given to the very rich.

My Bill proposes that in future state old-age pensions should be increased to half average earnings for pensioner couples and one third for single pensioners. This country can afford it. It can also afford to increase them every year, in line with the rise in earnings or prices, whichever is the greater, as was provided for in the Social Security Pensions Act 1975.

This is a ten-minute Bill and I know of all the difficulties associated with such Bills. I hope that the House will understand that millions of people are watching what we are doing. Millions of pensioners, after a lifetime of work, want something more than scraping around in queues for EEC butter, or looking around for remnants at jumble sales or car boot sales. They want dignity in retirement. With the support of many inside and outside the House, the Bill, if enacted, would go some way towards directing national expenditure to where it belongs—to those who most need it.