Living Standards

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Frank Dobson

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I think that it will be generally accepted that people’s long-term living standards depend on decent pensions and that as a society generally we need to save more. Until now, having a pension has been seen as the safest way of saving—

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Frank Dobson]

I certainly shall not.

Over the past few years people in the private sector have seen their bosses slash the pensions available and swindle them out of what they thought they signed up to when they joined their pension scheme. Now the Government are turning that idea on the public sector, with higher contributions, longer years of work and then lower pensions. One of the dangers is the lesson people will draw from what has happened in the private sector and is now proposed for the public sector. The Government talk about nudge, but the nudge will now encourage people not to bother to save because some swindler, either public or private, will take it off them and they will not get what they thought they signed up for.

On 11 August the Prime Minister repeated his praise for the emergency services, the police, firefighters, ambulance staff and A and E staff. Then he went back to Downing street and proceeded to press on further with trying to undermine the pension provision for all those people, making them work longer, pay more and then get less in their pension. He clearly considers them only when doing a bit of PR at the Dispatch Box. The same is true of the Government’s approach to teachers.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of teachers to this country’s future, especially head teachers, whose leadership is crucial in schools, because they do more for wealth creation than anyone in the City of London has ever done. They educate, train and produce adaptable young people who are the greatest asset to wealth creation in this country so that we can compete with the best on quality and not be dragged down to having to compete with the cheapest on price, because that is something we will never do.

The Government ought to wonder why head teachers are going on strike. Not only are they going on strike for the first time, but they have had a strike ballot for the first time. They are determined to improve their schools and believe that the pension proposals, if they go through, will damage their schools in the long term. Everyone accepts that changes are necessary. The teachers have accepted that changes are necessary, and they accepted agreements a year or two ago to make a bigger contribution.

The interesting question that the Government do not answer is why they have not produced the actuarial review of whether the teachers pension fund is in credit or deficit. They know that it is in credit, but they will not produce the answer because they know that it will expose the fact that they are trying to shift money from the teachers to the Treasury to pay for the incompetence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has made as big a mess as was predicted when he took over as Chancellor. I have nothing more to say, Madam Deputy Speaker.