State Pension Reform
15th October 2003

John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland): I was interested in the contribution from the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Duncan) or, as he is known in Scotland, the Tory one. I feel that he is a friend, but a misguided one. I have been surprised by the crocodile tears of the Conservatives. Those tears are a ruse: they do not care one jot about means-testing and that has been shown over many years. Nor do they care one jot about the poorest in society. It is political point scoring at its worst and it is done without any thought of or consideration for the people who they are using to make those points.

I represent Glasgow, Anniesland, and we have some 13,500 pensioner households on a conservative-with a small “c”-estimate, or about 18,000 over-60s. The pension credit appears to be working well. The complaints we have heard today about the telephone lines are not matched in the Anniesland area. The only problems that we have relate to paperwork and letters received. I have talked to the pension people and, apparently, the letters are written by a computer. They are formulated according to the answers given on the forms. However, that is not the way to do it when dealing with real people, especially the elderly. I ask the Minister to look at the problem-I have mentioned it to him before-so that people receive letters that they can understand. More importantly, MPs should be able to understand them-it has taken me a few readings to work some of them out. I have some knowledge of what has happened with the pension credit, however, and I pay tribute to the people manning the telephone lines for the good work that they are doing.

We should remember what the Government have done and people should realise what could be lost if the Conservatives were to come to power. My pensioner households receive £200 every winter as their winter fuel allowance, not the measly £5 that was mentioned earlier by the hon.

Member who talked about running all over her constituency trying to hand out forms. The £200 is given to every pensioner household every year and I am glad to say that after my prompting and prodding the Chancellor put it up to that amount. I take personal credit for that.

Mr. Peter Duncan: Are any of the pensioner households that the hon. Gentleman mentions paying more council tax? Is that increase greater than the £200 he mentions?

John Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The sad fact is that many pensioner households in Anniesland do not pay council tax, because they are so far down the economic ladder. However, for those who do pay it, the council in Glasgow has kept it fairly level over the past four or five years and it has actually gone down in real terms. So I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question because I am sure that it has added a couple more votes to my majority.

The Government have not and should not apologise for means-testing. It was not introduced by this Government, but it is necessary if we are to find out who are the poorest in society. The number of people we have taken care of holds up against any Government in the past and, I hazard a guess, in the future as well. The Government should be commended for their work on pensions. It is important that we look after those who need to be looked after the most. Anybody who suggests otherwise is talking through a hole in their head.

Rob Marris: Other than their mouth.

John Robertson: Exactly. The across-the-board increases mentioned by the Opposition sound very nice, but-as was clear from their speeches-they are trying to help only the top 10 per cent. The Opposition do not care about 60 per cent. of the population? Why not? Because that 60 per cent. do not vote for them. If that 60 per cent. voted for them, they would start to care about them. As it is, the Conservatives are happy to throw that 60 per cent. in a dustbin.

I am aware of the time and I shall be interested to hear what the Opposition spokesman has to say, but I have one further comment about the 18 years of misrule during which the Tories did little for pensioners. We have known for decades that there is a pension problem. It is not confined to the UK, but affects the rest of the world, especially those countries in the western hemisphere that do rather well in financial terms.

We do not need to take lessons about pensions from the Opposition. The Conservative Government created 4 million unemployed. Where were the pensions of the long-term unemployed? I congratulate the Government on what they have done, and want them to do an awful lot more. I wanted to say a word about final-salary pensions, but that will have to wait for another day.

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