§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, in view of the fact that former Prime Ministers, military officers, civil servants and others who have not contributed towards their pensions can and do retire and are permitted to earn unlimited sums of money without the £35 per week earnings rule as applied to the ordinary retirement pensioner being applied, he will remove the earnings rule of such ordinary pensioners.
§ Mr. OrmeNo. It has been the policy of successive Governments for nearly 30 years to limit entitlement to a national insurance pension, during the first five years after minimum pension age, to people who have retired from full-time employment, and an earnings rule is an essential corollary to a retirement condition of this kind.