Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Ben Gummer and Graeme Morrice

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

I profoundly respect the hon. Gentleman. He is a torchbearer for a former age in the Labour party, and he should raise that point with his own Front-Bench team. We are clearly not going to agree on it. However, at some point, someone needs to face up to the fact that we will almost double spending on old-age pensions between now and 2040. I shall put that in context: the number of people retiring this year who will be alive in 2041 will be more significant than now. I cannot give the precise figure, but hundreds of thousands of people retiring in the next few years will be alive in 20 or 30 years. We are not only dealing with an intergenerational problem, with a problem between this generation and a generation in two or three generations’ time or with a problem between people in their 20s and those in their 60s or 70s; we are dealing with a problem of those retiring now and to whom we must promise pensions and a decent standard of living in 30 years’ time. The ability to afford that is at the crux of the Government’s reforms, and this proposal is just the start of it.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) asked why, if this was such a wonderful proposal, it was not in the Conservative party’s manifesto. My question is this: if this is such a wonderful proposal, why was it the only one not leaked before the Chancellor’s statement?

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not the case. [Interruption.] Well, it isn’t. I was endeavouring to have a wider debate about the importance of the reform in the context of the massive pensions challenge and of trying to pay for the pensions of vulnerable people not just this year but in 10 and 15 years.