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Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton): While it is true that there have been helpful trends in recent years, which we welcome, a relatively new concern has become prominent in my correspondence and, no doubt, in that of my hon. Friend: many of the very elderly fear that if they have to go into nursing homes they may lose their homes and sacrifice their family's inheritance. Should not the Government address that as a matter of urgency?

Mr. Porter: I could not agree more. The Government need to inject urgency into their thinking on that issue, which will clearly be part of the forthcoming general election campaign. Whichever party wins that election, the new Government will have to tackle that problem as the number of elderly people continues to increase. The question of the cost of living and how those people will be able to afford it must be addressed urgently. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.

Many of my constituents--and, I suspect, people elsewhere--believe that Irish, French and German pensioners do much better than ours. To some extent, pointing out to them the difficulties of making straight comparisons between countries and asking various questions--such as whether they have the same health care, whether the pension is normally their only form of income, what the spending power of their income is, whether there is provision for adult dependants and what the qualifying age for entitlement is--does not necessarily help. British pensioners come out quite well in accurate comparisons, but some pensioners retain the erroneous perception that they are the paupers of Europe.

During the years of evolution of our welfare and health care systems, we have learnt that however much is put into them it can never be enough: demand and expectation rise relentlessly. The quality of life through material possessions rises continually, as does demand for a share of them. Medical science, technology and medical inflation will always outstrip the taxpayer's ability to keep up. We are therefore right to consider future provision. We are right to confront the dilemma of shorter and more flexible working lives--which are constantly changing owing to technology--and longer, healthier, more mobile retirements and the unharnessed resources of our older people.

Factors such as tightening up on benefit fraud, saving on public spending, targeting welfare more accurately and developing a tax regime that allows the economy to create the wealth to spend are all helpful. It also helps to point out the Opposition's increasingly vague plans to link pensions and earnings and the way in which they have dropped their earlier magic wand promises to pensioners. In addition, it helps to highlight Labour's plans to cut the basic pension to pay for giving everyone a pension at 60. However, we must go further than that.

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Pensioners have other fears. Both in cities and rural areas, there is a fear of loneliness and isolation. When grandparents were given greater acknowledgement as an integral part of family and community life in a less mobile, more rooted society, those fears were less acute. Pensioners fear physical immobility. It is small wonder that hip replacements are now so popular--some are replaced for the second or third time when they wear out. Many pensioners fear that the transport they need will not exist. Long-time retirees to popular parts of the country, such as my area in East Anglia, often feel more cut off as they become older and perhaps give up their cars.

Local organisations such as DIAL, and associations that help by working with the elderly and disabled, play an extremely effective role in combating that isolation and fear of it. Technologies that help to provide better access to buses and taxis also help, but we could go further. Perhaps tax-friendly assistance could encourage technology to come up with some better ideas to combat that fear.

The fear of not being safe in one's own home or walking the streets is real enough, even if it is not always borne out by the crime figures. The chief constable of Suffolk wrote in the East Anglian Daily Times on 10 September 1996:

"There is a disproportionate fear of crime within vulnerable groups such as the elderly. People are fed a constant diet of scare stories of violence. We are not saying no problems exist. We are simply trying to put these stories in context. Statistically, elderly people are the group least likely to become victims of violent crime. However, surveys show they are the group who most fear being attacked. It is not right whole sections of the community should live in fear because of an inaccurate perception of our society."

As well as real crime, we have to deal with the perception of a tidal wave of crime.

Our continued drive for meaningful sentencing helps a lot. It is a pity that the Labour party has not supported our law and order measures for most of the past 17 years. Real support for the victims at the expense of the criminals--such as making the criminals work for their victims--would reassure those who feel at risk. I still believe that giving the courts the option of capital punishment would be welcome, but that is another story for another day.

As we look more closely at long-term health care and as the eligibility criteria for continuing care come fully on stream, another set of fears arises which needs addressing. Controversy over health has, unfortunately, never been far away in my area. That controversy has often been stoked up, and elderly people alarmed, by my opponents, who think that the national health service is theirs alone--notwithstanding the fact that for most of its life the service has been evolving and developing with more being spent on it year on year from taxpayers' money provided by Conservative Governments.

Our local Anglian Harbours NHS trust will be the first in this country to go out of business--by August this year--having lost all its contracts. There have been fears and threats, real and imagined, and rumours of the closure of our district general, the James Paget hospital, and of community hospitals at Lowestoft, Beccles, Southwold and Halesworth. Those fears have all been fanned like forest fires in a gale by the Labour party and its fronts in

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the form of various action groups that have alarmed our pensioners. The All Hallows hospital, just over the border at Ditchingham in south Norfolk is outside the NHS and is run by nuns and the London Hospital Management trust. It faces cuts in contracts from East Norfolk and Suffolk health authorities because there are empty beds in the NHS cottage hospitals at Lowestoft and Beccles. It is a dilemma for the health authorities and for our local communities, but the health authorities have shown that they are sensitive to public demands in a local, GP-driven NHS. It does not help older people to be allowed to think that there will be no local provision for them when they need it or to insist on measuring health care on a strict bed count as though that were the only yardstick these days.

The final fear is the sickening feeling among many of my constituents about those who sometimes seem cravenly to hand over all our powers and our Britishness to the European nightmare. Whether the problem involves fishing, beef, lamb or the very pound itself, the generation who gave the best years of their lives fighting German and Japanese tyranny do not, in general, want to see that sacrifice squandered in the creeping way that often occurs. Most of them have had enough--more than enough--whether of being at the so-called heart of Europe or of never being isolated in Europe.

Let us continue with our threefold thrust: we must increase the basic pension in line with prices, encourage private provision on top of that and focus extra help on pensioners who most need it. Let us continue with our low taxing, liberalising, deregulating and privatising of the economy so that we can expand the health and care services for the retired and others in an affordable way. Let us take a hard look at the future provision and do all that we can to enable more people to provide for themselves and their families instead of always thinking that we have to do it for them. Let us harness better the resources of those who live longer and who have more experience of life. Above all, let us work with the retired generations to include them more and carry them along with us more as we--at least Conservative Members--continue to shape the world that our grandchildren and their grandchildren will inherit.

12.46 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Oliver Heald): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) on securing the time for today's debate and on his choice of subject. He is known to speak his mind in this place; he is also known for the vigorous way in which he promotes his constituents' interests. We have certainly seen an example of that today.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) on his well-timed intervention on the important subject of long-term care. There is not time to go into that subject in great detail, but I know that my hon. Friend will welcome last autumn's White Paper and the proposed measures to enable individuals to ring fence their assets and provide for their long-term care in retirement while protecting the inheritance that they rightly wish to pass to their children and others.

Anyone watching our debate today will have noticed that, as we discuss the important subject of pensioners' welfare, the Labour Front Bench is empty, there are no Liberals present--[Interruption.] Of course, the Scottish

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nationalists are here, and one Labour Back Bencher is now present. The poor attendance shows that the soundbite is often given precedence over debates in the House, which is to be deplored.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney made a number of specific points; I shall pass on his comments to the Ministers involved. He mentioned the Anglian Harbours NHS trust. I am advised that the health authorities do not expect to make significant changes to the location of services, and that it is likely that most clinical and nursing staff will continue to be employed by the new service providers, but my hon. Friend will have to wait for a fuller answer on that subject.

My hon. Friend also mentioned bus services. We now have increased route mileage, but it is the role of local authorities to subsidise socially necessary bus services should they wish to do so. At present, about 15 per cent. of bus route mileage is subsidised in that way. Many local authorities have also exercised their discretion to provide concessionary fares for pensioners. The Government's view, and that of previous Governments, has been that it is better for the local authority, with its knowledge of local circumstances, to decide how best to promote public transport and the needs of vulnerable people in the areas over which they have jurisdiction.

My hon. Friend referred to crime in general and to crime in Suffolk in particular. Crime in Suffolk fell by 3 per cent. in 1995, which will be welcome news to elderly people there, but my hon. Friend's point was that such reductions in crime are not recognised and that a sense of insecurity remains. I accept that there is a good deal in that argument. The police have better powers, there are more police officers and they have the ability to investigate cases more effectively, thanks to measures passed by the Conservative Government, all of which were opposed by the Labour party.

Measures at local level--neighbourhood watch schemes and other projects that try to reduce crime in the local community--have an important role to play. My hon. Friend will know that there are 1,200 neighbourhood watch schemes in Suffolk and that the draft strategy for community safety is currently being prepared. Again, I shall pass on his concerns to the Home Office to see whether anything more can be done to address them.

My hon. Friend raised the important issue of cold weather payments. The Government are committed to helping vulnerable people to receive extra help at this difficult time. So far this winter, we have made more than 5 million payments worth over £43 million. The payments, of £8.50 each, are made to claimants who receive income support or jobseeker's allowance when that is income based. The benefit includes all groups with pensioner premium and other vulnerable groups.

It is worth remembering that, under the Labour Government, there was nothing. The Conservative Government have introduced a system that provides an automatic payment, which is triggered when the average temperature over a seven-day period falls below a certain point.

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