Intergenerational Fairness in Government Policy

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for introducing this excellent debate, and I particularly endorse her comments about the short-termist approach by all Governments, which is so damaging to this country. I suspect that this is quite an uncomfortable subject for most us in this Chamber, and the more research I did for the debate, the more uncomfortable I have felt. Most of us are sitting on a very substantial asset, or, in many cases, more than one. We own assets that young people of the age we were when we bought our homes—27 years ago in my case, with a couple of young children—cannot even dream of. Here in this Chamber today we are, as we have admitted, mostly baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965. As we have heard, there are also members of the Silent Generation—or Traditionalists; those born before 1945—and we even have the odd member of Generation X, covering 1966 to 1980. But we do not have a single millennial here to tell us for themselves how they feel about the intergenerational shift in wealth and services from young to old. What is more, I doubt that many committees here ever hear from them as witnesses.

I am particularly grateful to have heard from the patron saint of millennials, my noble friend Lord Willetts. I am only sorry that not enough of the baby boomers who now run this country listened to him at the time of the publication of The Pinch, some seven years ago. I congratulate him on the work of the Resolution Foundation and in particular the Intergenerational Commission, which is doing so much important work and thinking in this space.

I first became aware that the millennials had had enough a few years ago when my own children started to get angry on behalf of their generation. It has been a long while in the making but the situation has now come to a head, and as we have heard, there is a risk that the millennials will be the first-ever generation to record lower lifetime earnings than their predecessors. While there is no natural right for succeeding generations to be better off, the cards in this game seem to be unfairly stacked against them.

Hot on their heels and about to jump into the workplace melting pot of Traditionalists, baby boomers, Generation X and millennials are the centennials, who will account for 30% of the global workforce by 2025 and have different characteristics again. They have no idea about a world without digital technology. From the moment they were born, technology has touched every part of their lives. They have never had to cash a cheque, use a hard encyclopaedia for homework or even open a filing cabinet. They have also grown up in the public eye. Social media took off in 2000, so it is in their nature to document their lives online for all to see. Their knowledge of social media can be a great asset. Their phones, which they stick to as glue, are their computers, and it is completely natural for them to take notes on them in meetings and the workplace. They are totally digital natives.

What is urgent for policymakers—and frankly, for all of us—is the revolution under way that will leave our labour market changed beyond recognition. Most pertinent here is that so many of the jobs that were enablers of social mobility from the 1960s onwards will be swept away on a tide of turmoil and tech. In the UK, 35% of jobs are in danger of automation; by the same token, over 1 million new jobs will be required in the digital sector by the end of this decade alone. By the time these centennials enter the job market, it will be unrecognisable to those of us in the Chamber today. But that group of very young people are for another day.

A number of noble Lords have concentrated their remarks on housing, employment and earnings, pensions and pensioner benefits, and the political difficulties in challenging the current position on those. I will highlight just one example of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, also highlighted. I am 61 and for nearly two years I have been entitled to free public transport in London under the concessionary travel scheme. Frankly, that is ridiculous. This generosity has also had an unintended side-effect because, as the number of people who work beyond state pension age has risen—many of whom work flexibly, without being stuck with regular hours—concessionary fares have enabled more and more of them to travel to work free of charge. Of the over-60s who use the London Underground or Overground network on a given day, at least 25% travel to work free of charge, saving thousands of pounds a year. Surely this benefit should at least be in line with the retirement age.

Many of our generation are fitter today than we were 20 years ago and we intend to remain fit and healthy into old age—or at least I certainly hope so. We have a duty to do so, not only for a more personally enjoyable old age but to reduce our own intergenerational footprint by keeping out of hospitals and adult social care for as long as possible.

No one today has mentioned the cost of sustained immigration. I accept that this issue is very sensitive but with an average of more than 250,000 immigrants every year for the past 10 years, we cannot ignore the effect that this also has on services and therefore on this debate.

This is challenging and difficult stuff and there are no easy answers. The material sent to us all by Age UK, for example, makes a powerful argument in favour of support for pensioners—for the triple lock and so on. The younger generation has no such powerful group to argue similarly on its behalf, but I end with a message of hope. The millennials I know are more thoughtful, more creative, talented and educated, and more resourceful than we were, and thank goodness for that.