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Dawn Primarolo indicated dissent.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: If the Minister is not nodding assent, she is going against the tenor of all the social security legislation.
Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman should check the qualification criteria for the married couples allowance. He will find that the statement that he has just made to the Committee is incorrect. I strongly advise him not to pursue that line of argument because he has made an error about who qualifies for it.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful for that clarification, but I have here the Bill, as published, and refer the Paymaster General to clause 28(2), which states:
- "Subsection (1) (reduction where neither spouse is aged 65 or over)--shall cease to have effect."
- "In subsection (2) (reduction where either spouse is aged 65 or over)--"
- "for 'is at any time within that year of the age of 65 or upwards' there shall be substituted 'was born before 6th April 1935'."
The Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will focus on the two lines in between that he did not quote; they are the ones that are relevant to the amendment.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I hesitate to disagree with you, Sir Alan, but, as I understand it, the amendment applies to lines 21 and 22--I am reading from the amendment. The lines that I quoted are lines 21 and 22 of clause 28(3)(a), which state:
- "for 'is at any time within that year of the age of 65 or upwards' there shall be substituted 'was born before 6th April 1935'."
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Thank you, Sir Alan. I do not want to dwell on the matter and I thank you for your advice. It seems to me that the wording of the Bill is clear, but, if I am wrong, no doubt the Paymaster General will correct me when she winds up the debate.
Kali Mountford: Is the hon. Gentleman now advocating same-sex marriage? I understood that it took two people--a man and a woman. Given that fact, what he has said seems nonsensical. Is he not simply saying that we will move the whole date forward by five years for everyone?
Mr. Clifton-Brown: As the entire social security system--and every other similar system in this country--
is predicated on the basis that women can retire at the age of 60 and men can retire at the age of 65, if one wants to deal with retired people by giving them a special, additional married persons allowance, it would make eminently good sense to allow women who retire at 60 to be able to claim that allowance. Obviously, the hon. Lady and I have different opinions on that matter and we shall not agree.
Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for trying to negotiate the details of the issue with Labour Members, but does not the absence of any logical basis in the Government's treatment of the issue prove what we know? The issue is not about consistency with other Government policies, or about ethics; it is simply a grubby bid to save a little bit of money for the Exchequer. That is the rationale. Why does not the Paymaster General give up the unequal struggle and admit it?
Mr. Clifton-Brown: My hon. Friend is too generous to the Government. The measure is not merely a grubby deal to save some money; at the same time, it claims to benefit pensioners--something that could be done much more effectively.
There is no doubt that elderly people approaching retirement have been severely disadvantaged by the measure; they will have no time whatever to build up their finances to compensate for the loss of the allowance. That is so typical of the Labour Government; they tend to hit people at the bottom of the income scale. We have seen that time and again. It is grossly unfair because those people--of all members of society--do not have the time to work overtime to make up their pensions to provide for themselves when they eventually reach retirement age. It now seems that women will be encouraged to work an additional five years--from the age of 60 to 65--because they will be denied the allowance and that, too, is grossly unfair.
Others among my colleagues have said that the measure is anti-family. Indeed it is. The married couples allowance was introduced in the first place to compensate for the fact that married couples could not claim the additional single persons allowance. Under these provisions, we are saying, in effect, that it is fine for people to live together because they will be able to claim the additional single persons allowance, but a married couple--who are not both earning--will not be entitled to claim those two personal allowances.
Mr. Geraint Davies:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, if the Committee accepted the amendment, it would be unfair to two friends or colleagues, one of whom was married and the other not, approaching the age of 65, because the unmarried person would point to the married one and say, "My friend has the allowance and I haven't--what have I done wrong?"? Would that not be grossly unfair?
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
The hon. Gentleman has conclusively proved that Labour Members have not understood the reason for giving married couples an allowance, which is precisely to benefit people who are
Mr. Davies:
Is not the history of the allowance that it was designed to help married people with the costs of marriage and of children? It would be absurd to reward someone who is 65 simply because that person is married or because he or she opportunistically gets married aged 65 so as to get the allowance.
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
With that second intervention, the hon. Gentleman gets himself into even deeper water. The married couples allowance is not given only to those who have children. There are thousands of married couples in this country who, for many different reasons, choose not to have or do not have children. Why should they not be given a little help by the tax system?
Mr. Bercow:
I am sorry to trouble my hon. Friend again, but I cannot resist the temptation to point out yet another inconsistency between the views of Labour Members. Does he not think it extraordinary that, on the one hand, the hon. Member for Colne Valley(Kali Mountford) says that it is absurd to suppose that people get married to attract the allowance, whereas on the other hand, and only a matter of metres away from her, the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) pillories older people, impugns their motives and implies that, at an advanced age, they would rush to the altar simply to get the allowance? Government Members should get the line right.
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
My hon. Friend is exactly right--no one would rush to the altar to get the married couples allowance. Successive Governments of both colours have decided that it is right to encourage the state of marriage and that there should be an additional allowance to compensate for that.
Mr. Healey:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Dawn Primarolo:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
I give way.
The Chairman:
Order. When more than one hon. Member has risen, the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) should state to whom he is giving way.
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
I give way to the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Healey).
Mr. Healey:
Is not the hon. Gentleman overlooking the fact that other parts of the tax system benefit married couples? MIRAS--mortgage interest relief at source--can be claimed by both partners if they are married, but not if they are unmarried--[Interruption.] Transfers between married couples are exempt from capital gains tax, whereas transfers between unmarried couples are not.
Mr. Clifton-Brown:
I am delighted by that intervention. It is the Labour Government who are 5 pm
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