Ageing: Public Services and Demographic Change Committee Report

Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach (Con)]

My Lords, it was a great pleasure to be a member of the committee. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, on his chairmanship of it as this subject is potentially politically divisive. He chaired the committee brilliantly. He listened carefully to everyone’s arguments and was very balanced in his judgment. We have heard two outstanding maiden speeches this afternoon. I am delighted to see two more noble Lords with a business background on the Benches of our House and look forward to hearing many more outstanding contributions from them.

I wish to make four points. First, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the strong language in the report and to the strong language of the chairman. The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, pointed out that the report says that the Government are woefully underprepared to tackle this problem. It also refers to “a collective failure” to address the problem. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, has said that the Government’s response to the committee’s report was weak and failed to give leadership. He also said:

“Government and all political parties prefer to keep the public in the dark”.

In opening this debate, he said that there was no rebuttal by the Government of the committee’s evidence and that the Government lacked vision, which was a great shame. As I say, the noble Lord is a man of balanced judgment and moderate temperament. However, I suggest that the strength of his language and the stringency of his argument fairly reflect the views of the committee regarding the sheer scale of this problem—it is enormous—and the fact that we are simply not grappling with it.

Secondly, one thing which came out very clearly is that many people in our society are not financially prepared for retirement. People are living longer. Many surveys have been done—for example, by HSBC, Scottish Widows and the department itself—which have tried to figure out what people’s position really is. I shall not bore noble Lords with the details, but, frankly, they are horrendous. A section of our society, the members of which unfortunately fall in the lower income groups, is not at all prepared for retirement. If we as a society do nothing, we face the spectre of a much more unequal and less inclusive society. In the future, no Government will be able to stand by and be indifferent to pensioner poverty, which will create a serious problem for the public finances. We need to grasp this problem now; it cannot be deferred.

Thirdly, something in our report that struck me forcefully was that many people will have no option but to work longer if they want to have a decent standard of living in retirement. We made it very clear that no one will be forced to work against their will. The decision of when to retire must be made freely by the individuals concerned and not be imposed by society as a whole, least of all by government. On the other hand, if people have to work longer through necessity, the committee’s view was that we should make a virtue of this.

In any case, as I know myself, work brings positive benefits. Apart from providing some extra income, it keeps your mind active and means that you are involved in a community of much younger people. I find it extremely stimulating. The good news from surveys that have been carried out is that many people would like to work into retirement, whether part-time, part-year, job-sharing, working reduced hours, doing term-only work or home working, and perhaps taking unpaid leave. Business is already rising to the challenge of this extra work. The department has published a list of companies and local authorities which have been very innovative. We also know from maternity leave and from the arrangements made for pregnant women while at work that business can be very flexible. Therefore, there is evidence of this.

Finally, I very much chimed with the closing remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, when he said that the Government need to set a framework encompassing retirement age, state pension, housing equity release and developing a savings culture and so on. On the other hand, could not the political parties make a commitment in the manifestos that they will be preparing for the next election regarding the immediate challenge that we face? I should like to ask the Minister what he would suggest in this regard. Could they not make a commitment saying, “We will address this problem in our manifesto.”? Such is the scale and seriousness of the problem, as I think our report shows.