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1.30 am
Therefore, we need to see the change in the context of a wider attack on the elderly and on a range of disadvantaged groups. I do not want to anticipate the heated debate that the House will have later on disabilities, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the context of disabilities, because many old people and widows are also disabled. Those groups overlap. We should remember that some 70 per cent. of disabled people are over retirement age. It is therefore important to consider these matters in an holistic fashion.
Mr. Hawkins:
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to reflect on what our hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said in drawing a comparison with the Government's television campaign, which talked about paying pensioners back and used the phrase "They owe you"? Given all the changes that the Government are making--introducing stealth taxes and attacking pensioners--is it not the case that the Government owe the widows?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order.I think that we have now sufficiently explored the width of the context, and the hon. Gentleman would do better to bring his remarks back into focus on this new clause.
Mr. Hayes:
I had no intention of allowing my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) to seduce me into pursuing a subject that would meet with your displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and test the patience of the House. It is important, however, that we understand that widows may well fall into one of the other groups that have been targeted for particular treatment by the Government, which is why I mentioned disability.
This is a grubby measure. I am not the first to describe it as such; that word has already been used by Labour Members this evening. It is negative, spiteful and draconian. I hope that the House will reject it and that the people of this country will see it and understand the sort of Government with whom they are dealing. I hope that many Labour Members who have been brave and bold enough to criticise their Government will remember that as we discuss other matters later tonight, when they may have a chance to register their compassion, care and concern, and their contempt for this sort of attack on vulnerable people by the Government.
Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South):
I wish to speak briefly in support of the tranche of amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I begin, as he did, with a recognition of how much praise and credit the Labour party deserves for founding the welfare state, which Labour built up and has been responsible for constructing and maintaining. Labour fought to resist its erosion by the previous Conservative Government--
Mr. Quentin Davies:
There are some things that one should not be allowed to get away with, even at this time
Mr. Simpson:
The strengthening of widows pensions was among the first tranche of measures that the Labour Government introduced in 1945--
Mr. Simpson:
The Labour Government of 1945 laid down the building blocks of a welfare state, based on universality and rooted in the contributory principle. However much of a hair shirt the Conservatives now wish to wear in accepting the damage that they have done to widows benefit, we should not be deluded into believing that that somehow makes them the defenders of a universal and inclusive welfare state. That is about as convincing as Rupert Murdoch proclaiming his support for a contributory tax system.
When the Conservatives were in office they got someone else to make the commitments and contributions. Their notion of equality was based on the principle of hitting the old just as hard as the young, and of treating the not so young as badly as those who were not so well. That is the history of their 18 years in office. Labour has inherited the remnants of that destructive period. We should treat their hair shirt confessions with some caution.
I should also put in context the unexpected and belated conversion of the Liberal Democrats to new clause 4. I was pleased to see that they have come round--I knew that they would, but not this soon. Yet that party has found more ways to spend a penny than any other in political history. A universal and inclusive welfare state cannot be funded entirely from a one penny increase in tax revenues.
The Labour party wants to preserve and modernise the welfare state. Our position must be tested againstthe benchmarks that are important to the Government in the refounding and reforming of the welfare state. We make great play of the fact that the Labour party is committed to the family, and to marriage in particular. I am not sure that we should focus on the centrality of marriage instead of having a more inclusive view of families, but that is one of the benchmarks that we have set ourselves. We have also set out our stall as a party that encourages responsibility and that values the things that we hold in common as much as those we have constructed for ourselves as individuals.
I ask Ministers to measure the proposal on the restriction of entitlement to widows pensions against those three benchmarks. I think that the proposals breach all three commitments. The national insurance principle is a contributory principle. Millions of families, whose members are spread across several generations, believe that they have been part of that contributory principle, and that it gives them some guarantee against an uncertain future. People believe that there is a safety net which, in the event of an early and unexpected death, will leave their widow with an entitlement based on contributions already made. We cannot wipe out that history of contributions or condense it into a six-month period and pretend that that is still the basis of a universal and inclusive provision.
We must recognise that millions of people still believe that, under the national insurance structure, widows benefits form the foundation of a modest income that may be supplemented by earnings. Whether a person is male or female, the prospect of finding work in their 40s and onwards is not great. All Members of Parliament in their constituency advice surgeries have heard a litany of complaints from older workers who feel that they have been abandoned by the labour market. They constantly refer to their experiences of seeking jobs and being told that they are past their sell-by date. It is a tribute to them that they continue to look for work, but we ought not to pretend that this is a process whereby a declaration of intent to look for work will magically secure the opportunity. Bereavement compounds the problems that older workers experience in pursuing secure and reasonably paid employment.
I am sure that most Members of Parliament will have received letters from Age Concern and many other groups. We are, in fact, vulnerable to the criticism that the changes will mean that the Labour Government are themselves guilty of a form of pensions mis-selling. Age Concern has sent details of people who have received letters from what is now the Department of Social Security, dated 1979, 1987, 1991, 1994 and 1998, all telling men that their wives would be covered, and would receive widows pensions. One sentence from such men comes up time and again: "I am now too old to make any alternative plans for my wife".
The amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) address just how far back we ought to set the benchmark relating to those whom we continue to include in the current provisions governing the contributory framework for national insurance. All who have made such contributions will no doubt tell us that, to a certain extent, we have been obtaining money on false pretences. They believed that they were contributing to the common pot of national insurance, on the basis that it would be there for all at the point at which it would be needed. In that context, we are in danger of constructing something that is close to retrospective legislation. It is retrospective in the sense that all who have already made contributions are in danger of seeing those contributions being taken from under their feet not just by a change in future commitments on social policy, but by a reneging on past commitments.
We should also consider what bereavement means as a personal experience. I do not think that the House has begun to scratch the surface in considering the impact of the death of a partner. Seeing a partner die makes huge demands not only on a person's work prospects, but on that person generally. It makes demands on the person's social confidence; it makes the person introspective, in that he or she must simply get through life day by day, week by week. The point at which death occurs is the beginning of what is often a long grieving process. The idea that the process can be limited to six months--the idea that people can be told, "That's your lot, get yourself sorted out, get out there and get a job"--does not remotely equate to the real-life trauma that many people, especially women, experience in the process of nursing a partner to a dignified death.
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