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Mr. Waterson: I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. As she knows, no one would lose under our proposals, but is she aware that despite several opportunities to speak up in the Chamber the Government are still being very coy about whether it would be their intention, if by some mischance they were elected to a third term, to increase the pension credit in line with prices or earnings? Is it not a bit rich for them to criticise us when they, the current Government, have not even formed a view about it?

Angela Watkinson: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification.

There is another in-built advantage to our proposals in that, as pensioners no longer rely on the means test, their savings will be freed from Government scrutiny, and a pound saved for retirement will mean a pound more for income in retirement.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): I believe that one of the hon. Lady's political heroines is Lady Thatcher. Is she aware that it is now almost 25 years since that meanest of Acts resulted in the decoupling of pensions from pay? Does she accept that that has contributed more towards the poverty of present-day pensioners, particularly elderly females, than any other single Government move in recent times?

Angela Watkinson: One of the main reasons for women's inadequate pensions and their poverty in old age is the fact that they have been unable to work outside the home or they have not had the same opportunities as men to do so. We will put that right by linking pensions to earnings.

The policy has received support from such august sources as the Institute for Public Policy Research, an editorial in The Observer, no less, the Equal Opportunities Commission and that robust and quite scary body, the London Pensioners Forum. If anyone has ever done battle with the latter, they will know that it is a force to be reckoned with. An Age Concern survey found that

"nine out of ten pensioners receiving Pension Credit want the Government to provide a higher Basic State Pension . . . 73 per cent. believe that means testing puts people off applying for the benefit".

On a related subject, elderly women in particular like to receive their pension using their pension book at their local post office. Upminster, which is part of the London borough of Havering, is subject to the Post Office's urban reinvention programme—a weasel-worded way of saying, "We are going to close your post offices." Many elderly women who have never worked outside the home regard the collection of their pension as a social occasion, because they meet people and know the sub-postmaster. All their life, they have budgeted in cash on a weekly basis, and that is how they wish to continue. The changes have therefore been very upsetting for them. If their post office has closed, they have to rely on a neighbour to collect their pension, or
 
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if they still have a post office, they have been pressed to have their pension paid into a bank account, which many of them do not want. They are supposed to have the option of opening a Post Office card account, but they have to be very persistent to do so, because the system is extremely off-putting. Small details such as remembering a PIN number are a distressing change of habit for them, and are a break in the way in which they have managed their finances all their life.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): The hon. Lady will be aware that more than 3 million people have already opened a Post Office card account. We have the means to ensure that whatever account people choose they can access those funds at the post office. She is right, however, that we need the post office network, so does she accept that the Liberal Democrat proposal to wipe out the £2 billion that we are putting into that network by scrapping the Department of Trade and Industry will not help those women pensioners?

Angela Watkinson: In one post office in my constituency, the good ladies genuinely believed that they would be listened to if they responded to the consultation and that it would make a difference if they signed the petition. Their post office, however, has been closed, and the alternative is two bus rides away, so the closure programme has resulted in some worrying injustices.

Vera Baird: I am interested in what the hon. Lady is saying, but what have the Conservatives ever done for women pensioners in the past? Home responsibilities protection was a Labour measure, and everything introduced since 1997 to help women out of poverty has been a Labour measure. What have the Conservatives ever done for women pensioners?

Angela Watkinson: The Conservatives have done a great deal for women, because the country became wealthy under a Conservative Government, and that prosperity was available to everyone, including pensioners, who are part of the community.

I want to refer to mixed-sex wards, which are an utter disgrace. I accept that there are moves to do away with them, but they still exist. It is upsetting enough to go into hospital, but older women find it humiliating and embarrassing to be in a mixed-sex ward. When my mother-in-law was in a geriatric ward in Whipps Cross hospital, she shared a room with many elderly gentlemen with prostate difficulties who had to get out of bed every few minutes. They had to walk up and down the ward using certain appliances in front of ladies, which was a wholly unsuitable arrangement. The patients do not like such arrangements, which are as bad for men as for women, and neither do the staff. I look forward to the day when a policy of no more mixed-sex wards is implemented.

A new hospital in Oldchurch in Romford, covering the London borough of Havering, is due to be opened next year. I asked for a reassurance that there would be no mixed-sex wards in that hospital, but I did not get an unequivocal response. I was told that there would be separate bays for male and female patients, with partitions, and that there would be separate facilities for
 
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them, but that is not quite the same as completely segregated wards, which is what patients want for privacy and dignity. I believe that that would be supported by staff.

Finally, breast cancer screening has focused on women up to the age of 70. I welcome the extension of screening to women between 65 and 70, but there is no mention of women over 70 in the programme. They are encouraged to make their own appointment. However, many older women are of the old school, where one did not make a fuss. If asked whether they were all right, they would always say they were, even if they were not. My own mother was a case in point. We need to include women over 70 in the programme or introduce some method whereby they are reminded that they need to continue having regular screening, as that age group is most vulnerable to breast cancer.

I look forward to the day when we no longer need policies for women—when we just need policies.

6.6 pm

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I was slightly disappointed by the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), who offered many fine words but no proposals to help women now aged 60 until they are 75, with the legion problems of pension eligibility that have been discussed today, and which were discussed last week and in all the proceedings on the Pensions Bill.

Among recently retired men, 90 per cent. have a full basic state pension. Only 25 per cent. of recently retired women have a full basic state pension. The hon. Member for Northavon has nothing to say about them except that they will come to a second retiring age, so to speak, when they are 75. At that point they will start to get as of right, on some curious and not fully explained basis, an increment that will bring them up to the level of the minimum income guarantee, which many of them will have been getting before that on a means-tested basis. I am disappointed that even though the hon. Gentleman says that he is proposing a new idea, he does not deal with the problems that concern pensioners now and will concern those who are due to retire in the next 15 or more years.

The hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) seemed to think that the Conservatives' policy was marvellous. As I understand it, the Tories would restore the link to earnings, which they destroyed 25 years ago. They more or less—this is not unfair—froze the level of the basic state pension for a very long time indeed, leading to the vast numbers of pensioners who were in poverty when we took office and requiring us to bring in the minimum income guarantee.

Now, by way of redress 25 years later, the Tories would link the pension to earnings so that over the four years of a Parliament, a person with a full basic state pension would have it increased by £7. That is all that would be given. However, as I mentioned, 75 per cent. of women do not have a basic state pension, so what would they get out of this great gift from the Tories? At best, £5 on average, on £50 over four years. How will that help? It is proposed as some kind of answer to means-tested benefits that will start the crusade towards a good basic state pension and a reduction in the means-testing of benefits, but of course it will not achieve that.
 
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The proposal means that men who are £7 below the level of the pension credit will get to the level of the pension credit.

People with an income £6 below the pension credit of £105 will be out of means-testing by £1 after four years. The band of people who are up to £6.99 below the minimum income guarantee may have the satisfaction of being brought off means-tested benefit by a penny or two, but that is a relatively small number of people, and guess what—the Conservative party favours the better-off. Only those who are close to the minimum income guarantee will get any benefit at all, but the benefit is trivial.

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