Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, a renowned expert in this field, as indeed are many other noble Lords participating in today’s debate, unlike myself. Some of her points were very interesting. Clearly, she approached this argument from a position of expertise based on wide financial and economic knowledge. My contribution will be very much principle-based, but from listening to her, there is some common ground between us, although what I have to say is rather different.

My noble friend the Minister made a strong case for suspending the pension triple lock for one year only. The key argument for me is one of fairness, something which pensioners will recognise too if they look at this from the perspective of their own experience. However, I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, the view that this should be a suspension for one year only, and I would certainly seek my noble friend’s confirmation that this is not a step towards permanently breaking the triple lock.

I make this point particularly on behalf of the over-75s—the silent generation, as they are described by researchers—and on behalf of older baby-boomers. When people comment on this who are not necessarily as informed and expert as the noble Baroness and many others here today, reference is made to what is seen as recent generosity to pensioners by way of pension payments. What gets overlooked is that older pensioners contributed a lot throughout their working lives.



These pensioners faced and overcame many challenges. I am talking not about the war but about growing up in an era when being poor meant that you went without or, maybe later, having to bring up a family on a three-day week. I am talking about the kind of people who did not enjoy free university education either. Although they may have bought their homes, which have gone up in value during the past few decades, before the 1980s getting a mortgage was probably harder than it is today. My point is that they got through all that without the advantage of the kind of benefits which are available today or were put in place after 1997 and caused among a lot of people a real sense of unfairness.

I agree with others that we need to make sure that our pensions and benefits system keeps pace with the changing world, which should include reviewing pensions policy as today’s younger boomers get older—but on that I would defer very much to the experts who will contribute to today’s debate. However, if we work on the general principle of fairness and that contribution is important to the legitimacy of the welfare system and to people’s willingness to keep paying in even at times in their life when they are not in receipt of benefits, we should also recognise the experience of today’s older pensioners.

As I have said, I am sure that many noble Lords can and will make a better economic case than me to justify the point that I am making, and some noble Lords may want to have an economic argument to claim that I am wrong, but I think that older pensioners, especially at a time when we are suspending the triple lock, need to hear us recognised not just what they have contributed in financial terms but that they have coped in situations without the kind of support that families and younger people receive now. Just to be clear, I am not arguing for a return to the past nor am I calling for us all to get nostalgic; the world is a very different place now and today’s challenges are different. However, it might give older pensioners some confidence in the future that they are not going to see and yet hope for their children and grandchildren if we parliamentarians argue that there are lessons about financial management, getting our priorities right and making choices which they taught us and we must not forget. Indeed, they need and want us to promote those lessons as principles which remain as valid today as they have always been. I say all this because I think these are things which we know and sometimes take for granted, but that does not mean that they are not points that are worth restating and which people need to hear us say.

To pursue the principle of fairness, I want to ask my noble friend the Minister a question about working-age people. I know that she, like me, believes that it must always pay people to get work: work must always pay and it must always be the best option. As we come out of a phase where people have got used to support such as furlough, when people may need to take on extra hours because of the end of the temporary uplift in universal credit and when we face rising energy costs and other cost of living increases, what is the Government’s position on reviewing and changing the universal credit taper rate so that people can enjoy greater returns for more hours at work?