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'one year, after which the payments shall be reduced each year by an amount equivalent to one fifth of the original amount,'.
Amendment No. 22, in page 44, line 19, at end insert--
Amendment No. 23, in page 44, line 25, after '(b)', insert
Amendment No. 24, in page 44, line 41, after '(2)', insert
Amendment No. 25, in page 44, line 46, at end insert--
Government amendments Nos. 63 to 65.
Mr. Pickles:
The increase in bereavement paymentsis welcome, as is their extension to men, but the abandonment of widows without dependent children after six months is shameful. Currently, a person who makes a contribution has the full and certain knowledge that, should something happen to him, his wife will be taken care of. The Government are expanding the scheme to widowers as well as widows, but at the same time they have abandoned a firm promise that they made to the public.
During the general election campaign two years ago, many Labour Members made lots of promises to their electorate and many column inches were expended on what the welfare state had in store should a Labour Government be elected. I cannot find any mention of the fact that one of the first acts of a Labour Government would be to deprive widows of a pension.
Both main parties have the Excalibur software, which makes it possible to search the comments of every Member of Parliament and parliamentary candidate. I am pleased to report that we have not found a single example of a Labour Member or candidate telling their electors that they would put an end to the widows pension.
Mr. Hawkins:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason why he and others cannot find such a mention is that Labour Members and candidates knew perfectly well that if they had said in the run-up to the election that they proposed to betray widows in that way, Labour would certainly not have won the election?
Mr. Pickles:
I am fairly certain that my hon. Friend is right, but perhaps he is being unkind to individual candidates in suggesting that there was a cover-up. I suspect that the information was restricted to one or two key figures. I expect that Labour Members went honestly to their electorate without making a full disclosure, because as far as they were concerned there was no possibility of reneging on a pension that had been in existence since 1925.
Mr. Bercow:
Sheep in blindfolds.
Mr. Pickles:
My hon. Friend may have a good point about the sartorial elegance of Labour Members. It is not
The Government's arguments are straightforward and, in one respect, right. They are right to say that the system reflects a time when the man was the breadwinner, and what was appropriate in 1925 or 1948 is not necessarily relevant to 1999; hence the challenge in the European Court by a man, Mr. Kevin Willis. It may have been at the back of the minds of all candidates at the 1997 general election that the Willis challenge would have to be dealt with during this Parliament. However, I do not believe that anyone felt that a Labour Government would deprive women in order to pay for men. I doubt that there was a single person who put their cross on the ballot paper in May 1997 who seriously believed that that would happen. Perhaps two people--the Prime Minister and the Chancellor--knew that it was going to happen.
If I, or any of my right hon. or hon. Friends, had suggested at the election that women would have to suffer to pay for men's bereavement payments, we would have been accused of scaremongering. It would been a "Tory smear" and people would been on the box immediately to rebut it. The question of equality is a veneer--the measure is an excuse to save money. I do not believe that anyone who has watched a mother, sister, daughter or friend go through the process of bereavement will regard the Government's proposals as anything other than cruel and inhumane.
In many ways, this is four Bills in one. We have had a taste of some of the more complex aspects of the Bill earlier today. We have had to rely on experts to give us their views on what might happen. That is not the case with this measure, because it is within the personal experience of us all. I doubt that there is a single person in the Chamber tonight who does not have direct experience of bereavement. If there is, they are very lucky. At some stage, they will have to face that problem.
I use the word "veneer" deliberately. Unlike the welfare budget--which my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) said earlier was growing out of control--the number of people claiming widow's benefit is dropping. It has fallen by 30 per cent. since 1983, when 405,700 widows claimed the benefit. In 1997, 283,600 widows claimed the benefit. It is my sincere hope that the figure continues to fall.
This is a cost-cutting measure to save £600 million. Husbands have paid in that £600 million over many years in the reasonable expectation that the Government would honour their promise. The lack of that £600 million will force widows on to means-tested benefits. It will amount to £600 million worth of disincentives to save or make provision for one's loved ones.
It is our contention that six months is too short a period. Grief affects us all differently. Some people become practically catatonic in the immediate aftermath of a bereavement, while others want to throw themselves straight back into work. The person who goes straight back to work and the one who takes a long journey of many faltering steps both need time and understanding.
Sympathy is always greatest in the immediate aftermath of a death and a funeral. That is when people gather round and want to help, saying that the bereaved person need
only pick up the phone, and so on. As many hon. Members will understand, as time goes on, the phone calls and letters start to dry up, and life for the friends and relations goes on as before.
Six months is a crucial period for anyone who has been through a bereavement. In the first months, there are legal matters to take care of, the estate has to be organised and the clothes and possessions have to be disposed of. There is a lot of activity to keep people's minds occupied. It is often around the six-month mark that the full impact of the loss is felt.
I cannot put it better than the National Association of Widows and the Widows Advisory Trust, which say:
Mr. David Prior (North Norfolk):
My hon. Friend has spoken movingly about the plight of widows. Is not the man who knows that his life is coming to an end, and who has paid his contributions for many years on the understanding that his widow would have a decent pension after he died, also in a difficult situation?
Mr. Pickles:
That is absolutely right. A contract existed between the state and the citizen, and the Government are embarking on a breach of that contract. Men have contributed over many years, through several generations, on the assumption that, should their life be terminated before their wife has reached retirement age, the state would not desert her. The state will desert now them. We would add to all the problems that widows face at the very moment that their loss becomes reality by requiring them to look for a job.
Reality is such that the job search would have to start long before the six months was up. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) is in his place, and he made that point tellingly on Second Reading. In practice, no one will wait until the six months is up, because they will have to start looking for work much earlier--probably after three months. The prospect of the worry of having to find a job and that little bit of financial security being denied to them because they do not have dependent children will hang over those widows, and add to their worries, at a time when their judgment is defective and they are emotionally vulnerable.
I told the Committee that I lost my mother when I was in my mid-20s. I found the experience numbing, I felt bereft, and I had no judgment. The plight that I felt myself in is well described by Mrs. Sheila Walker, from the Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide. She makes this point:
Various arguments can be made about social change. The widows benefit was first introduced in 1925 and it was replicated in the national insurance system introduced in 1948. I concede that in 1925 and the years following 1948 the majority of women were housewives. The past two decades have seen an acceleration in the numbers of women joining the work force. From a personal perspective, I say that that is a welcome change in society. The changes in society are offered as an explanation for the proposals for widows benefit, but the Government are anticipating future changes. The proposals do not necessarily reflect changes in the situation of women in their mid-40s and 50s.
We must nevertheless address the current situation. Not all widows are high flyers--city lawyers, partners in accountancy firms or highly paid executives. Many women are engaged in low-paid jobs, supplementing their husband's earnings. That was put very well by Cruse Bereavement Care, which says:
Mrs. Patricia Thomas, national liaison officer of Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, wrote to me and other members of the Committee, and said that her income had been reduced by two thirds by bereavement, and by a further half by a series of redundancies.
Women often return to work in their mid-40s, working in jobs that do not command very high salaries. The widows benefit offered an additional income that went some way to compensate for the sudden drop in income resulting from the loss of a spouse.
Let us consider a couple of cases who will be especially badly hit by the proposals. A female constituent--whose name I shall not use, to protect her confidentiality--was widowed, aged 48. Her children were no longer dependent. At the age of 43, she had restarted work. A year later, her husband contracted throat cancer. At 45, she left work to take full-time care of him. She was advised by doctors that he probably had only three months to live. Actually, he lived for a further three years--three years of very stressful daily care, watching someone who was once a vigorous husband, a commanding man, slowly wither away. For months after his death, she was plagued by nightmares of the last months of his suffering. It is not reasonable to expect such a person to recover sufficiently well to seek employment after a mere six months.
Another case, brought to the attention of a member of the Committee, was that of suicide. It takes a long time for emotions to settle down. The loss is even harder if the bereavement results, not from accident or illness, but from suicide. Overlaying the grief is the question, "Why me? What did I do wrong?"
I return to what Patricia Thomas says. She has considerable expertise, and she writes very movingly:
Others wish to remain at home to take a career break. A woman might do part-time work from home, or no work other than taking care of her children and running her home successfully.
Work progresses and practices change. New people join a firm, and those familiar with a woman's work move on. She may have been progressing satisfactorily up the promotion ladder, but her time away will force her to start again at the bottom. Mrs. Sheila Walker, secretary of the National Association of Widows, says:
'(3A) In cases where a person was on or over 35 years of age on the appointed day, a bereavement allowance shall be payable indefinitely, subject to subsection (4) below.'.
'where she or he was under 35 years of age on the appointed day,'.
'In cases where a person was under 35 years of age on the appointed day,'.
'(2A) In cases where a person was on or over 35 years of age on the appointed day, the weekly rate of a bereavement allowance shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of sections 44 to 45A below as they apply in the case of a Category A retirement pension but subject, in particular, to the following provisions of this section and section 46(2) below.'.
"The proposals give an allowance of six months after which the widowed person is expected to be fit to move through the system into full-time paid employment. In our long experience of bereavement care we would identify six months as being a crucial point in the grieving process. In the early stages of grief the shock goes some way to numb the pain, however at six months the shock is fading and the loss becomes a reality. Imagine the difficulty at this point for a woman who may not have worked outside the home, may have nursed her husband for many months, and still grieving, having to register as unemployed and begin actively seeking work."
That is precisely what the Government will force thousands of women to embark on when the Bill becomes an Act.
11.30 pm
"The widow . . . did not choose to be in that position. She has been through this traumatic experience and she is left numb, unable to keep her thoughts straight. Each day initially is a struggle. I spoke
17 May 1999 : Column 771to a newly widowed lady yesterday who said, 'I was never like this'. She was very upset because she could not function as she would have liked."
Six months is a very short time, and the new clause seeks to address that problem. It is a compromise between the status quo and the harshness of the Government's position and it would give the Government a chance to think again.
"losing a spouse from the age of forty-five to retirement age is usually devastating and can result in financial hardship. In particular, many parents in this age group still need to continue to support their older teenage or young adult children"
without further assistance.
"I am extremely concerned about the lack of appreciation of the effects of bereavement, especially in cases such as suicide which inevitably causes significant traumatic shock. The suggestion that a widow will, six months after such an event when she is still suffering from shock, be capable of applying for jobs, attending interviews or coping with the further rejection of not being offered a post, is completely unrealistic."
Career breaks can also affect the situation. Often mothers intend to return to work fairly soon after the birth of their child, and some who do are very successful parents.
"Alistair Darling seems to have lost sight of the emotional side of losing a much loved partner. He proposes that after six months a widow should lose her allowance and be urged to seek employment or to go on to income support, thereby subjecting her to a means test. No way can a widow of six months be in any fit state of mind to do either. She could be suffering from problems of mid life, made even worse by having lost the breadwinner. Where are these jobs Mr. Darling expects her to get? She has had a career break and may not be able to get on any rung of a working ladder."
It is little wonder that the Social Security Advisory Committee said that it regarded as unrealistic the emphasis on retaining financial independence through employment.
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