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Cymru supported that Government. Successive Conservative Administrations have kept inflation low, and pensioners have undoubtedly benefited from that. I do not hear howls of complaint from pensioners or receive the flood of letters that one used to receive from pensioners in the days when inflation ran high. As hon. Members have said, I have a high proportion of pensioners in my electorate. That does not mean, of course, that there are no concerns; some of the concerns expressed this evening are very real. There is concern in Gwynedd about community care and about the fact that the council appears to have exceeded its budget by more than £1 million. That is causing great concern to pensioners in my constituency. The £8,000 limit, too, causes concern, and one hopes that the Government will be able to do something about it in due course.Yes, obviously we would like improvements, but not more than the country can afford. The real revelation this evening--I am glad that it has come out--is that if we were to follow the line proposed by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy when he moved the motion, there would be a bill of about £22 billion, which would mean not a penny or two on income tax but as much as 12p extra.
Mr. Llwyd rose --
Sir Wyn Roberts: I am conscious of the time, and of the fact that others wish to speak.
The Plaid Cymru motion calls for a direct link with earnings. I have heard that populist demagogic cry from the Labour and Liberal Benches from time to time over the years, but not recently. The Labour party, certainly, has changed its tack.
At the Labour party conference the Leader of the Opposition said that Labour was
"looking at ways for people to put together income from public and private sources to guarantee a minimum standard of living for our pensioners."
So far, so good. He continued:
"The aim of the policy is to remove the stigma of means testing for ever."
How on earth can one do that? I find the statement confusing, and I am sure that the Minister does too. How can one find out whether people have made prudent provision for retirement without some kind of means test?
Whatever the outcome, does that not mean that those who have made provision for their retirement will be penalised for their thrift? That is a sore point with pensioners even now. Those who have saved certainly do not like to see those who have not saved being treated as well as, if not better than they are, at the taxpayers's expense. We must be careful what promises we make to pensioners. They know that policies have to be paid for, and will want to know the cost--as we have found out tonight the cost of the proposals of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy--and whether it can be afforded. More than anything, pensioners want certainty.
As the Prime Minister's amendment says, pensioners' living standards have risen. Not only have their average incomes risen by 51 per cent. in real terms since 1979, but extra help has been given through improvements in income-related benefits. Pensioners now own more household goods than when Labour left office. For example, 78 per cent. of pensioner households now have
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central heating, compared with 46 per cent. in 1979. In 1979, 57 per cent. of pensioner households had a telephone, that all-important instrument for the elderly; in 1991, the proportion had risen to 93 per cent. That kind of thing can make all the difference in the world to pensioner families.In my view there has been steady progress, and I am sure that it will continue while the Government remain in office. The great danger is that there may be a change of economic circumstances or--God forbid--political circumstances, which could affect pensioners' prospects very adversely. Whether we sit on the Front Benches or the Back Benches, we must see to it that that political change does not happen. If we are honest with the pensioners they will help to ensure our victory.
9.2 pm
Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West): What a pleasure it is to follow a genuine Welsh pensioner--the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts)-- and how we look forward to his retirement. He may go into a nursing home eventually, although I am sure that if he does we shall all visit him as it will probably be the one just down the Corridor, which is so handily placed for us.
In congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on having achieved pensioner status, I should like to correct him on one point. The decline in the number of people of working age relative to the number of pensioners is not nearly so dramatic as he suggested. Over the next 30 years it will be very modest--almost within the margins of statistical error. In Wales the figure will fall from 3 to 2.8, and in England from 3.3 to 3.2. Even the Minister, in his opening speech, confirmed that the big differential will occur only after the year 2021, when the people born in the baby boom after the second world war reach retirement age. That is the only difference between the parties on matters of fact, although there are many differences on matters of policy.
I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) on choosing the subject for the debate, which is a matter of great importance to all of us in Wales.
Mr. Sweeney rose --
Mr. Morgan: I am sorry, but I shall not give way, due to the shortage of time.
The founder of national insurance in this country, Lloyd George, was from Wales, as was the founder of the national health service, Nye Bevan. Matters of health and social care, pensions and provision for retirement were raised in the early years of this century by one of the great Welsh politicians, Lloyd George.
We are well aware that Wales will have two additional Members of Parliament following the next election, and the number of Members from Wales will be rising from 38 to 40. This is due not to a rise in the numbers of people of working age in Wales, but to an expansion in the pensioner population. The additional Members of Parliament are being provided in the counties of Dyfed and Clwyd, not in the industrial areas or in the capital city of Cardiff. The additional Members will be in those areas which are most attractive to people of retirement age who are moving to Wales in large numbers and surviving in
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Wales in greater numbers. As a result, Wales will get those two additional Members. That is pensioner power defined in a practical way for us as politicians.I want to concentrate on a matter which is of huge importance to Wales and on which the Minister touched in his opening speech. Many pensioners in Wales are developing a fear of losing their homes in their old age because the British Government are acting as a state repossession agency and are seen as more evil than many of the worst banks and building societies which have been involved in the repossession scandal of the past few years. The moral persuasion with which the Government could lean on those banks and building societies to reduce the pressure to repossess would be much greater if they themselves were not engaged in mass repossession through the social security system.
Mr. Richards rose --
Mr. Morgan: The Minister will have an opportunity to speak in about half an hour.
Mr. Richards: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Richards: It is not clear at this point whether the hon. Gentleman is speaking for or against the motion.
Mr. Morgan: That is a singularly pointless intervention which is unworthy of any reply whatsoever and is a total waste of parliamentary time.
Is the Minister in favour of any amendment to the capital disregard rules, as has been speculated on? That is what most pensioners in Wales want to know, but the Minister did not answer that point. I understand the parliamentary convention that prevented him from doing so, but I want to tell him why that matter is such a burning issue with pensioners in Wales.
The Government have a totemic faith in the virtues of home ownership, but they did not need to tell us in Wales about that--we had that feeling about home ownership long before Lady Thatcher started talking about it. The present Prime Minister has talked about wealth cascading down through the generations, but it is people's fear and anxiety about the possible repossession of their homes when they become elderly and have to go into community care rather than wealth that is cascading down through the generations in Wales. What do the Government intend to do to reduce the problem that they have created through the way in which they introduced the provisions relating to nursing and residential care homes, which have ballooned in number in this country over the past few years? The measures mean that £8,000 is the maximum capital that a resident of such a home is allowed to have.
I spoke this morning to Mrs. Marjorie Williams, whose mother is in an old people's home in Cardiff, having gone into full-time care in December 1992. As she had worked until she was 65 and her husband--who had been a miner in the valleys--had a miner's pension, she had some capital saved. Having run down that capital until it reached £3,000 in July this year, the Department of Social Security then told Mrs. Williams that it was time to put her mother's house on the market. That has now been done, and the house has been on the market for the past
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three months because Mrs. Williams' mother's savings had dropped to the £3,000 that people are allowed to keep to cover their funeral expenses.My constituent said that if the house was sold it might fetch between £22,000 and £25,000--the typical price for a miner's terraced house. Her mother would then have to pay back the income support that she has been receiving to cover nursing home costs between July this year and whenever the house is sold. I suppose that the money thus raised will cover the next two and a half years or so: with nursing home fees at £300 to £400 per week, £25,000 does not go very far. What really brought the problem home to me was when my constituent told me that her mother still thought that she was in a national health service and free health care system. My constituent did not dare tell her mother that she was in a private nursing home for which she had to pay or that the house was on the market because the belief that one day she would go back to her own home had kept the old lady going while she was in nursing care. That is the tragedy of it. We live in a society in which daughters have to protect their elderly mothers in nursing homes from the knowledge, first, that they are in private nursing homes and, secondly, that their house is having to be sold to pay for the care. Elderly people who have scrimped and saved to build up their savings and pay for their house with a mortgage over 20 to 25 years, having paid for their house through the building society, then find that the Government take it off them in a mere three or four years. Rather than wealth cascading through the generations, it is being taken away from people. My constituent said that her mother would be very upset if she knew that her house was on the market. That made me think what an odd society we lived in. The Prime Minister is on record as saying that he wants to see wealth cascading through the generations. The Government are obsessed with trumpeting the virtues of home ownership with almost religious fervour. They have to resolve the problem. I appreciate that the Minister cannot give us too many details tonight as the issue may come up in the Budget, but it sounds as though an almighty battle is going on between the Department of Social Security and the Department of Health.
One scheme that is proposed is for nursing care costs--£100 out of the typical £400 fee--to be met by the state, but for residents to meet the accommodation costs. In that case, people would still have to sell their houses, but the money might last for five years in the nursing home rather than two and a half. Alternatively, the £8,000 capital disregard may be doubled to £16,000 or trebled to £24,000. Something must be done to solve the problem. Either the Government must stop pushing out propaganda about wealth cascading through the generations or they must solve the problem that anxiety and fear instead of wealth are cascading through the generations.
The pensioners of Wales find that the Government's propaganda is contradicted by their daily experience when they require permanent, long- term care in a nursing or residential home. Chronic care is in chronic crisis. The Government are acting as repossessors. That is destroying the belief in home ownership that people in Wales always had. It makes people feel that when they buy a house they are probably not buying something permanent. They can keep the house only if they are lucky enough not to
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require long-term community care. That puts the frail elderly into a state of acute anxiety which makes their illness even worse. The Minister said that many of us felt that we owed a debt of gratitude to all the elderly people who sacrificed so much during the second world war to keep Europe, the world and certainly Britain free from fascism, Nazism, and so on. That touches a raw nerve with many pensioners in Wales, who look at the level of pension enjoyed by people in Germany now and wonder who really won the war and who won the peace. They do not think that they are getting a square deal. 9.13 pmMr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan): May I first draw the attention of the House to the sparse attendance on the Opposition Benches today. To be fair, the Liberal attendance is 100 per cent., and the Plaid Cymru attendance is fairly substantial. Labour attendance is poor for such an important debate, on an issue about which the Labour party is fond of weeping crocodile tears. I am sure that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) spoke with sincerity, but unfortunately he spoke as a member of a party that is never likely to gain power, and his wish list could therefore be extremely long. He wanted free or reduced rate travel, free television licences, and free eye testing and dental treatment for pensioners. Surely it is better to ensure that they have a decent pension and the freedom to decide how to spend their money, like the rest of us.
The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) rubbished the Government's claim that demographic changes will lead to a large increase in the number of pensioners next century. All the evidence points in that direction, and it is totally unrealistic for any Government to bury their head in the sand and fail to acknowledge that reality.
The hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) referred to value added tax on fuel, and was supported by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, who referred to the warm home campaign. The Government have been to the fore on that issue, in making grants for insulation available to all pensioners. I did not hear Opposition Members giving the Government credit for that.
It was suggested that we should introduce zero rating for insulation materials--on the face of it, an appealing idea. The difficulty is that it would certainly be hard to define. Some items would be included, and others unfairly excluded. On the whole, I believe that we should, as far as possible, have a standard rate of VAT, when it is applied at all, and that the minimum number of items should be exempt.
The Government approach has been to increase state pensions in line with prices and to encourage private pensions. Opposition Members have not given the Government's successes due credit during the debate. It is fair to say that about 80 per cent. of pensioners will now have some form of income over and above the state pension. Surely that is a marvellous achievement. It has enabled the Government to give selective help to those pensioners who need it most. As my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, the average pensioner is 51 per cent. better off than when the Conservatives came to power. I shall mention a few statistics on the ownership of goods to illustrate the way in which pensioners have become better off under the Conservatives. In 1979, only
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57 per cent. of pensioner households had a telephone. Now, the figure is 93 per cent. In 1979, only 46 per cent. had central heating; now, it is 78 per cent. In 1979, 88 per cent. of pensioner households had a refrigerator; now, it is 99 per cent. Those are impressive statistics.The Conservatives believe in giving priority to those who need it most. We believe that means tests are appropriate where necessary. It was interesting to hear the Leader of the Opposition standing on his head on this issue when he said at the Labour party conference, first, that he opposed means testing, but at the same time that he would ensure that everyone had a basic minimum pension.
The importance of private pensions lies not only in the fact that they encourage people to provide for themselves, which is surely a good thing, but also in the fact that they stimulate industry, in that pension funds are able to invest heavily, and have made a major contribution to growth in the economy.
The average occupational pension is well over £70 a week, and, for those who are retiring now, it is around £95 per week. That shows the success of the introduction of such pensions.
I shall deal briefly with one of my favourite subjects--Europe. A study commissioned by the Department of Social Security, published in March 1993, considered various countries in the European Union. It is interesting that, in seven out of nine cases, the United Kingdom came ahead of Germany when purchasing power parity is taken into account. Does that not show that the Opposition are whipping up false concerns by constantly arguing that pensioners in Europe are better off than our pensioners?
I firmly oppose the motion, and support the amendment.
9.15 pm
Mr. Martyn Jones (Clwyd, South-West): I believe that being a pensioner in Wales should not be viewed as a negative state. People's retirements should be filled with leisure and enjoyment and truly become their golden years. Those golden years should be filled with opportunities to enjoy more leisure time, and ways in which to enjoy more interesting and independent lives.
Unfortunately, pensioners in Wales face a bleak future. Their golden years have been transformed from a comfortable retirement to a basic struggle to make ends meet. More than half a million pensioners in Wales have had their dreams of comfortable retirement squashed. They are forced to regard living with their basic needs met as an unattainable dream. Talk of private pensions rings hollow to them. Some are prevented from receiving state benefits because they have small, inadequate works pensions.
Pensioners want to have their fundamental requirements met--basic items such as health care, decent living conditions, and enough money to afford heating and a decent diet. Under the Government, those needs are not being met. Pensioners find themselves freezing in fuel poverty, unable to afford to heat their homes. Their low incomes, coupled with poor housing and inefficient heating systems, make the elderly prime candidates for hypothermia.
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As has been mentioned, mortality rates among the elderly sky-rocket each and every winter, as hypothermia claims more and more elderly pensioners. Over 8,000 deaths can be attributed to every degree by which the winter temperature drops below average. That situation is not helped by increases in VAT on fuel.Under the Tory Government, pensioners are often forced into housing that is unfit for human habitation or in a state of serious disrepair. Elderly pensioners make up over two thirds of those eligible for grants for living in unfit houses--and the grants are not forthcoming. In Wales, more than 29,000 pensioners live in unfit homes, and almost 11,000 live in houses that either lack--or have shared--basic facilities such as showers, baths and toilets. The Conservative Government have failed to deal with those dire problems, which are punishing the elderly.
Old age is not a disease, but pensioners face health problems without much support. The Tories have designed a health care system that is unresponsive to the needs of pensioners, even though one in 10 will suffer from dementia and a shocking 25 per cent. will suffer fractures as a result of osteoporosis. The Tory Government have done little to ensure that care remains adequate.
The call for health care and a decent standard of living is not a call for frivolous luxuries, but a plaintive plea for the basic necessities of life. Under the Government, the dream of pensioners' golden years still exists, but it is not a dream of a fulfilling, productive, fruitful and happy life: it is of decent housing, health care and attempting to stay warm rather than the continuing nightmare of making ends meet.
The Government will ask what can be done. Labour's last manifesto included a modest but costed promise to increase pensions by £8 for a couple and £5 for a single pensioner. Not much, perhaps, but it was a promise. A Labour Government would help the plight of pensioners in other ways, not only with money. We would introduce measures to help restore the NHS, reduce the fear of crime and improve housing. Finally, although I congratulate the Welsh National party on choosing this important subject, the pensioners of Wales should realise that that party cannot do anything for them; it cannot deliver. Only the Labour party can replace the Tory Government and start to put right the wrongs suffered by our pensioners in Wales. 9.23 pm
Mr. Don Touhig (Islwyn): The amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and others is an affront to pensioners everywhere. With the smug complacency that we have come to expect of the Tory party, it seeks to gloss over the real plight of pensioners in Wales--pensioners who, for the past dozen years, have watched the value of their pensions fall, their savings dwindle, and the cost of just staying alive increase all the time. People who have worked all their lives are struggling to live a reasonable life, confronted as they are by a Government who, when they find it difficult to make ends meet, simply say that these people should have provided better for themselves when they were working.
The Minister talked about disposable income, a matter on which the Government can speak with some authority. They put VAT on fuel and helped to dispose of a lot more income belonging to pensioners and others than they would otherwise have spent.
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The Prime Minister's amendment invites the House to applaud the Government for providing"a solid basis for income in retirement".
At best, I conclude that those who drafted that are out of touch; at worst it is a cynical display of contempt for the elderly. The amendment is insensitive to the plight of 500,000 people in Wales who are of pensionable age. I regularly see elderly people at my surgery. They are discovering that, far from old age being a time when they should be able to enjoy the fruits of their lives' labours, they face a desperate plight.
One pensioner who came to my surgery had a problem paying for his wife's funeral. The benefits system was unable and unwilling to help. He was a former service man; I pay tribute to the organisations for former service men who came to his rescue and paid the undertaker's bill--while the country he served in the war abandoned him to his plight.
A group of pensioner constituents of mine live in bungalows on a mountain at Markham, in the north of my constituency. They are desperately trying to persuade their landlord, Islwyn borough council, to change their central heating system from electricity to gas, because they cannot afford to keep warm. According to the Swalec report, the average tenant in those bungalows pays £500 a year, or £10 a week, for heating. To achieve that average, some tenants must be paying £244 and others £753. I have seen tenants' bills of £250 a quarter, or £20 a week.
Much of the housing stock in Wales is pre-war and lacking in basic amenities. Councils such as mine have done well to pay for housing improvements, but such funding in no way matches the need, and it will take a great many years to improve the housing stock. Many houses in my area were built by the National Coal Board on the exposed sides of valleys. They catch the worst of the weather, and many of them are occupied by an aging population. That fact should be recognised, as should the needs of the elderly people who live in some of the poorest accommodation in Wales.
Life under the Tories is difficult for many pensioners, and it is very far from the description in the amendment. The problem of providing for old age will not go away or diminish. In my constituency, 15 per cent. of the population are over 65. Figures published in the Islwyn health plan last year forecast that that number will increase to half the population by the year 2026. By the year 2006, just over 10 years away, the proportion of people in my constituency over the age of 75 will be the highest in Gwent. The Government should be preparing schemes and services to cater for this growing population of elderly people. The health plan, however, revealed a terrible lack of provision. We have no hospital in Islwyn. In 1993-94, 33,000 visits were made by my constituents, many of them pensioners, to the nearest general hospital, 15 miles away at Newport. We desperately need a neighbourhood health unit. What about care in the community, as many of my constituents ask? To be frank, the resources available in no way match the expectations raised by the Government when they introduced it. Many old people who looked to care in the community to provide some insurance so that they could continue to live independently in their own homes have been sadly disillusioned.
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Without the support of local authority services such as meals on wheels, and the various voluntary organisations, many old people would have no lifeline to the outside world whatever. I paint a grim picture, because it is grim for so many people living in Wales at the present time. Many elderly people live on the edge of poverty, in a society that appears to think that old age is a crime. The old folk of Wales, as the Government will learn, are made of sterner stuff. They will fight back. They will not be denied their chance to enjoy their autumn years in dignity and contentment.The message to the Government is clear: "Ignore the pensioners at your peril." Let us have no more of the "Alice in Wonderland" approach that we see in the Government's amendment. If the Conservative party is not prepared to do something about the plight of the pensioners, they should move over for a Government who will. 9.30 pm
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Mo n): This has been a very interesting debate and I would like to thank hon. Members, from both sides of the House, who have made such a valuable contribution to it. I thank all those who have made cogent points in the debate, and hope that the Minister and his colleagues will take a number of them on board. I have to say, however, that the Minister and, perhaps, the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) are the only people tonight who have given the Government a clean bill of health. Even the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts), in his usual way, gave some credit to the Government, but he said that there was a little bit more that they could do. He acknowledged two quite serious issues that affect pensioners in Wales: the concerns on community care, which I hope the Government will address, and the capital threshold for contributions towards residential care. We heard from the Minister that that is being considered elsewhere in the Government, and I hope that, when an announcement is eventually made, pensioners will benefit from it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) made a thoughtful and passionate speech, and he will certainly go down tonight as being on the side of the pensioners, as the pensioners' friend.
The Minister's response was extremely complacent. He seemed to give the impression that all pensioners in Wales were happy with the Government's policies. It is strange, then, that 75 per cent. of the people of Wales do not vote for the Conservatives. It seems to me that they know where their political priorities lie. I believe that the support for the Conservative party in Wales will fall dramatically at the next election, partly as a result of its policies towards pensioners.
I found it most surprising that the Minister chided my hon. Friend for pandering to the wishes of people who had a long wish list. He said that the Government were not in the business of making promises that they could not keep. What has happened during the past three years? Promise after promise, not only to the pensioners but the people of Wales, has been broken. Why are the Government now 30 percentage points behind in the opinion polls? Is it because they have kept their promises, or is it because they have broken them? The result will be quite clear at the next election. The promises made have simply not been kept.
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The Minister also chided my hon. Friend for failing to understand the niceties of one or two of the points made by Conservative Members. He fell into the same trap, because a very good point was put to him by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) about the differential between those on state pensions and those on private pensions. The gap between the two has risen. The Minister made the point that people on state pensions are worse off than people with private pensions and occupational pensions, but our point is that the gap between the two has also risen. The inequality has also risen. Those at the bottom of the pile are much worse off in relation to others than they have been at any time since the second world war.The Minister said that the Government have responded to the concerns of those who have high fuel bills, particularly the elderly and the disabled, and that much help has been given to meet their needs, but he failed to point out that assistance towards heating costs was made on the basis of average bills. We must accept that the elderly and the disabled have higher than average bills and they have to pay more in order to keep warm during the winter months. The high mortality rate among people over 60 and, in particular, those over 80, is highlighted by the fact that many feel that they cannot afford the heating necessary to sustain them.
Apart from one or two points acknowledged by the Minister, particularly concerning the capital disregard, his response was extremely complacent. The Government have sought to create an image of the elderly as a group of people who have grown in wealth and independence under the Conservatives and who exercise an element of choice which they never had before. That is not the case in Wales. There are three categories of pensioners. The top 20 per cent. is the category about which the Minister spoke. They are the people who can exercise choice, who had the wealth during their working lives to provide for their pensions. But 80 per cent. of pensioners in Wales have degrees of difficulty, some so extreme that they fall into the poverty trap.
In Wales, 40 per cent. of pensioners have capital assets in their home and some form of occupational pension. For the vast majority, that occupational pension is not particularly large, but it is too large for them to have any state benefits in addition to their pension. Therefore, they lose the benefits that others may have and they are in danger of losing their homes if they want to go into residential or nursing homes.
The right hon. Member for Conwy said that he was not receiving the same number of letters from pensioners as he was 20 years ago. I have not been in the House as long as he has, but I know that there are genuine and deep- seated concerns among the pensioners of Wales about the loss of their homes to pay for residential care. Their homes have been taken away from them and many pensioners in Wales believe that that is wrong. It is morally wrong. People should not be in danger of losing their homes if they have to look after themselves in residential and nursing homes. That is a moral issue which the Government must address. If that requires more resources, the Government must meet the challenge head on.
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The other group of pensioners, the bottom 40 per cent., comprises those who live on state benefits. I fully support the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery. Pensioners in that group are found particularly in rural areas, where they have special concerns in addition to those of pensioners living in urban areas. The value of their pensions has dropped dramatically in recent years. The inequalities that are built into the system for those who have not been able, through force of circumstance, to have private pensions places them in a particularly bad position.The Government must not say simply say that all those with private pensions are better off. Of course they are better off. But what about the bottom 40 per cent? What help will the Government give them? Shall we allow them to fall into greater inequality, or will the Government acknowledge that they have a moral responsibility to those people? Does one say that because an elderly pensioner on state benefit has not had the opportunity to obtain a private pension he should fall further behind? The value of the state pension is constantly eroded. The Government have failed to address people's concerns in tonight's debate.
We must also accept a few salient points about the position of pensioners in society in Wales. First, elderly people are over-represented among low- income groups. Secondly, dependence on state benefits in that category has increased in recent years. Income falls with increasing age; women--an issue that the Government have not addressed--and especially the large number of single elderly women, are more likely to be living on lower and dwindling incomes. The value of occupational pensions often dwindles over the years, although in the first few years it may constitute an important addition to recipients' incomes.
There are growing inequalities among the Welsh pensioner population owing to a real terms shortfall in the value of their pensions. There are growing inequalities in incomes, and--as others have pointed out--in the provision of housing. Because pensioners often live in houses that are not properly insulated, their running costs are substantially higher than those of others, and because they tend to live in large properties, often alone, their heating bills are high. There is also inequality in the provision of care. One of the reasons why pensioners in Wales are now in difficulties is the blurring of the distinction between social and health care. The Government know full well that the more pensioners and disabled people can be transferred to the social sector, the more the NHS will be excused from paying the bill. The Minister said that more people were being treated in hospitals, and that is true; but, as every hon. Member knows, many elderly pensioners are being sent home far too early. Pensioners are having to return to hospital because the care is not available at home.
Health care that was provided in elderly people's homes by district nurses free of charge, on the NHS, must now be provided by home carers. Who is paying the bill? Pensioners, who cannot afford it. The Government are transferring responsibility from the state to pensioners who cannot afford it in the first place. Is that the priority that the Government are giving to dealing with the elderly population in Wales? Those are certainly not the principles of Lloyd George or Aneurin Bevan; they are the principles of the Conservative right, which believes that tax cuts are more important than the health of pensioners in Wales.
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When community care was introduced, we were told that it created real choices for people: it meant that they could live in their own homes for much longer. The problem was that the Government underestimated, considerably, the number of people who would decide to go for that costly option. A clear choice is now unavoidable: the Government must either recognise the under-provision and provide more from their own resources or make pensioners pay more. What will happen? Pensioners will pay more. Local authority budgets cannot sustain the demand, and unless the Government are prepared to recognise that, the elderly population will pay more and more for social care.If the Government have any credibility left in this regard, they must accept the real concerns of pensioners. They must accept that the people of Wales, including pensioners, believe that they have failed the test. At least all Opposition parties have had an opportunity to present their point of view tonight; we await the Minister's response with interest.
9.43 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Roderick Richards): It is my privilege to respond to a debate on such an important issue.
Conservative Members subscribe to the maxim "Age commands respect", and we respect the elderly people of this country--not least because, some 50 years ago, their generation secured freedom for us and the rest of the western world. They bequeathed to us what we have today. We respect them also for their independence. They were brought up to believe in the work ethic, to stand on their own two feet and to help their fellow man. They are a generation who are entitled to be told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I am afraid that all they have heard from the Opposition parties today are lies, damned lies and statistics--politicians on the Opposition Benches promising the earth without ever acknowledging that such promises would cost the earth and so cannot be fulfilled. It is a cruel deceit on a grand scale to make claims and promises that not only cannot be delivered but politicians know they will never be in a position to attempt to deliver. Opposition Members have today shown their total disrespect for the pensioners of Wales. Do Opposition Members seriously believe that our parents' generation will be fooled by a list of empty promises? They forget that this is the generation that was tricked by the Attlee Government in 1945 into believing that socialism would deliver prosperity. It did not and it never will, so they will not be tricked today by Plaid Cymru or by new Labour: Conservative Members will see to that. The motion that we are debating, and I notice that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) is already shaking his head--I am fascinated-- [Interruption.] He failed to say, when speaking in a debate on a specific motion, whether he was for or against the motion. Now is he for or against it?
Mr. Morgan: Given a choice between the motion and the Government's rebuttal of it, the motion is far superior to that rebuttal. What worries me about the Government's rebuttal is that the Minister's Department does not appear to have contributed to it. The Plaid Cymru motion
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contains not only references to pension issues, properly the province of the Department of Social Security, but matters related to long-term nursing care and social care, which are his responsibility. In the rebuttal, however, there is no mention of those aspects. I do not even know why he is winding up for the Government.Mr. Richards: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for signifying on behalf of his party that he is for the motion and, therefore, that he is for the spending implications that go with it, which amount to some tens of billions of pounds. Conservative Members will return to that issue time and again.
The motion suggests that pensioners' interests are marginalised-- [Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene again? Mr. Morgan indicated dissent .
Mr. Richards: Those interests would be marginalised as an independent Wales--which the nationalists advocate--would be marginalised under the policies of Opposition Members, but not under this Government. We instead have shown our commitment to pensioners through real measures of real benefit, but it is not only about pensioners' income, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Social Security made clear.
We want older people to continue to live full lives and to play as full a part as possible in society and we have created a climate in which they can do so, with a high-quality national health service and with the emphasis we have placed on community care and meeting housing needs. Over the years, my predecessors and I have met representatives of pensioners in Wales many times. We respect their perspective and views. We have sought actively to find out about their concerns and worries and our policies reflect that. I was intrigued that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) was interested in pensioners. I carried out some research into the extent of that interest and I discovered that, in the past 12 months, the hon. Gentleman's interest in pensioners extended to one entire parliamentary question.
The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy referred to my constituent, Mr. Alan Roberts, without having told me that he would do so, so I should like to take up one or two of the points that he raised. As the hon. Gentleman already knows, I correspond and speak with Mr. Roberts frequently and regularly.
The national health service and local authorities have played different but complementary roles since the inception of the welfare state. To address the specific point that the hon. Gentleman raised, the guidance that we issued in February reiterates the
responsibilities of the NHS to provide continuing health care for those who need it, whether in hospital, in nursing homes, in residential care homes or in their own homes. The guidance does not signify a change in policy; it offers a practical national framework which clarifies the long-standing responsibilities of the NHS. I must say to the hon. Gentleman, who is not paying attention, that the guidance has been welcomed by a range of key interests in the health service, in local authorities and in the voluntary sector. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of concessionary fares. I am trying to address issues that he has raised and he does not seem to be paying attention; I wish that he
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would. All local authorities in Wales have schemes for pensioners, ranging from fare reductions of one third or half to free travel. Some authorities also have schemes for cheap travel on the railway as an alternative to concessionary bus fares. Local authorities are in the best position to decide what schemes are appropriate for their area.In addition to all the other super high spending proposals that the hon. Gentleman made in his speech, he referred to free television licences for pensioners. That particular scheme would cost £700 million a year across the United Kingdom. That is in addition to the £22 billion linking state pensions with average earnings to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, North (Mr. Heald), referred earlier. If we aggregate that as we go along, the sum approaches £23 billion. The Labour party is in favour of that and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West says that he now supports the motion.
There is one issue which the hon. Gentleman raised that I wish he had not raised, but I cannot allow it to pass. He spoke about pensioners having given everything to defeat fascism. I need hardly remind him that, when Britain was preparing for war, the founding fathers of his party attacked and burnt a RAF station on the Lleyn peninsula, so the hon. Gentleman need not pretend that the history of his party, which he and his supporters revere, is as clean, clear or supportive of British policies in the second world war as he would wish it to be.
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