Intergenerational Fairness

James Cartlidge Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the eloquent speech from the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). The report on intergenerational fairness by the Work and Pensions Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), raises some interesting points. The UK Government have built an economy that offers no long-term security for future generations. The Scottish National party’s vision of economic development is, however, built on the idea of inclusive growth based on equal opportunities, a fair and inclusive job market and a safe, secure future for the younger generation.

I know you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will find it hard to believe that I am not a millennial, but I am apparently a baby boomer. To make my contribution more authentic, I shall use personal examples of what has happened either to me or to others of my generation. According to the report, my fellow pensioners and I are in danger of breaking the intergenerational contract, in that my state pension—which I will always assert is not a benefit but a contract between me and successive Governments—and those universal pensioner benefits that I receive come at too high a cost for today’s working-age population.

I shall pause for a moment to consider the WASPI women, who have been treated abominably by this and previous Governments. Many of them have been required to wait far too long for their pension, which will come later than they were told, and this is causing them serious hardship. I was fortunate to be born when I was. I paid national insurance contributions until I was 60, and I continue to pay PAYE on my salary. I contribute to the national Exchequer. Indeed, over my lifetime, I have paid in more than I take out. I am happy for my fellow pensioners to be paid what they deserve, even if they have been unable to contribute as much as I have done. In Scotland, there are many more folk like me.

I welcome the report’s conclusion that it is not the fault of the baby boomers that the economy has become skewed in their favour. This echoes a point made by the hon. Member for North Swindon. We should not be allocating blame. Believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, there have definitely been times in my life when the economy was not skewed in my favour. Some people in the Chamber will remember 16 September 1992, and I certainly cannot forget that day. Two years previously, I had taken out my first mortgage at a rate of 7.5% and, after numerous increases on that day I found myself laughing hysterically on my drive home from work. I had just found out that the interest rate was now 15% and that it could rise even higher. Actually, it is not exactly true to say that I was laughing hysterically. I had stopped worrying by that point, because I figured out that no one else would be able to pay their mortgage at that rate either, and that my house would be repossessed and my three children made homeless only after the building society had repossessed the homes of all the people whose names began with the letters A to E.

The economy was definitely not skewed in my favour when the then Chancellor Gordon Brown’s change to dividend taxation in 1997 sounded the death knell for defined benefit pensions. For many of my generation and for future generations, that has had an ongoing effect. After his decision, pension schemes became unable to reclaim the tax credit on dividends. Regular dividends are hugely important to overall investment returns, so having a significant chunk taken out of them at a stroke blew a huge hole in the schemes’ finances, and the vast majority of them were frozen and closed to new entrants.

Speaking at his party conference in 2009, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) said:

“Gordon Brown’s disastrous tax raid on pensions heralded the start of the age of irresponsibility.”

He also said that a Conservative Government would

“reverse the effects of Gordon Brown’s pensions tax raid and get our country saving again.”

However, the right hon. Member for Tatton abolished the dividend tax credit altogether in 2010, making it impossible for him to reverse Mr Brown’s raid by making the credit reclaimable in future. Thus, we now have the rise of money purchase schemes, which means that pension values are even more subject to the variations of the stock market. Indeed, many people of my generation suffered after their defined benefit pension schemes were frozen, and the money purchase schemes that they were forced into did not even hold the value of the contributions subsequently paid in. In one case, a pensioner and his employer paid in for more than 10 years, but he received less back when he retired because the market was at its lowest point on his retirement date. All generations will feel the effects of those calculated moves as they move towards retirement age.

When addressing working-age challenges, it is important to be mindful of generational gaps. It is the protections offered by the triple lock to the state pension that protects pensioners in their old age. With inflation set to rise further, the protections must be retained while we address the stress on younger generations. While the triple lock remains in place, we need cast-iron guarantees that it will not be abandoned after 2020.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a captivating speech. None of us wants to make changes to the triple lock, but there must be some recognition of what the country’s finances can afford. That recognition must be balanced against the security for pensioners.

[Marion Fellows]

There certainly is recognition, but I totally disagree with some of the ideological truths held by those on the Government Benches. We have to look after pensioners just now and pensioners in the future. Indeed, Age UK told me to refer to the Pensions Policy Institute, which calculated that a younger person with lower earnings has a 63% chance of achieving an adequate retirement income if the new state pension is increased by the triple lock, but that could fall to 36% if it is linked to earnings. That is about future generations, not just me and my generation. Other parties should be united with the SNP on future protection. Notwithstanding the report’s importance, we must be clear that addressing the challenges for working-age individuals does not mean deprioritising the safeguards for future pensioners. The way to tackle intergenerational fairness is through inclusive growth, ensuring that all generations can live in security in retirement.

The report also looks at universal pensioner benefits such as winter fuel payments, which are not index-linked and have dropped in value over the years. The Committee’s opinion is that universal benefits should not be off limits when spending priorities are set by future Parliaments. However, some commentators have said that the cost of removing them from better-off pensioners could be more than the benefits themselves.

I have granddaughters and I might have grandsons one day, too—who knows? I want things to be better for them. I would like the UK Government to look closely at what can be done to improve matters for them. As I said, the UK Government have built an economy that offers no long-term security for future generations. The SNP’s vision of economic development is to build on the idea of inclusive growth based on equal opportunities, a fair and inclusive jobs market, and a safe and secure future for the younger generation.

The Scottish Government are building a safe and secure future for future generations. They believe that a fair and inclusive labour market that provides sustainable and well-paid jobs is key to a more equal society and a more resilient economy. To achieve intergenerational fairness, we need to tackle the legacy effects of the economic recession, such as youth unemployment and in-work poverty. The Scottish Government are ambitious in their aim to reduce youth unemployment and are now implementing the Wood commission’s recommendations through a youth employment strategy. Scotland has been a strong advocate of collective action at EU level and has supported initiatives such as the European youth initiative.

I might run out of time, but I will swiftly talk about home ownership and housing costs, which the Scottish Government have done a lot to improve. The Scottish Government will build 50,000 affordable homes, which will help the younger generation, and passed the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 to create simpler tenancies that offer stability and security to the 700,000 tenants who call the private rented sector home. The Act improves security for tenants, contains comprehensive and robust repossession grounds and includes an opportunity for local authorities to implement rent caps.

What we need for all generations is hope for the future and robust policies that do not pit one generation against another. My children and grandchildren do not begrudge what I have earned and paid for, and I want the best for them, too, but I have grave misgivings about their life chances under this Tory Government. Theresa May has indicated that the UK could follow down a road of deregulation.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who is a very good member of the Select Committee on which we both serve. I will echo one of his key arguments, which is that we need to reform the triple lock and other pensioner benefits and to use the savings for adult social care and the NHS, given how much of those savings would go to those who are pensioners.

The key word used by the hon. Gentleman was “honesty”. We must level with the British people about the financial situation we are in. The way to look at it is to ask: if we had a blank canvas today, what would we keep of what we have now? No one starting a pensions system today would come up with the triple lock. No one would suggest a winter fuel allowance, costing £2.1 billion, which is paid to everyone regardless of their income or their national insurance record. In my view, no one would suggest a free bus pass, which costs £1.2 billion. No one would even suggest the £10 Christmas bonus, which Ted Heath introduced in 1972, costing £124 million at Christmas, at a time when the NHS is in crisis and needs more funding.

The essence of my argument is that 2020 is way too late. To have such a date is to use an arbitrary political timetable to enforce policy, at a time when the national interest requires us to look at the state of adult social care and the NHS and to find the money needed for them in a fair way. To me, the proposition that we are about to put more money into adult social care and the NHS but that none of it will come from existing pensioners is extraordinary. We have to look at pensioner benefits and the triple lock.

When it comes to the triple lock, we must remember that by 2050 the number of pensioners—the number of people over 65—will not be 10 million as it is today, but 19 million, which is almost twice as many. Look at the pressure our services are under today, let alone when there are almost twice as many pensioners. If we keep the triple lock, it will cost an extra £15 billion by 2050. My view is that we should recognise that the most vulnerable pensioners—those who need help from the state the most—are in the care system or in the NHS and in need of care.

I think we should look very hard at the winter fuel allowance. I would capitalise it for a year to invest in remediation measures, provide help with heating and so on, and move people on to more competitive energy tariffs, and then I would wind it down and spend the money on the care system, because that is what pensioners need, particularly in the winter.

We should look at the free bus pass. We could put a nominal charge on the pass and allow pensioners to travel at peak time. According to my county council, that would be a huge saving. It is actually what many pensioners want, bearing in mind how many do not take advantage of the free pass, which costs the Exchequer £1.2 billion a year.

I have to add that we should look at free prescriptions. In England, we say that we pay for our prescriptions, but 90% of prescriptions in England are not paid for, because so many of them go to the over-60s. The cost of free prescriptions in England for the over-60s is £4.8 billion. I recently went to a pharmacy in the beautiful village of Clare in my constituency. Most of the over-60s there are relatively well-off and probably own their properties outright—of course, there are pensioners there who are not well-off—but the fact is that they receive free prescriptions while many far less well-off people of working age do not. That is the sort of moral issue we must talk about.

What would I use the savings on? People should be as open and honest about this as I and our Committee have been prepared to be.

[Julian Knight]

My hon. Friend is slaughtering sacred cows in such a steady fashion that I am wondering whether he is also considering looking at free BBC TV licences. Is that an expense we cannot afford?

[James Cartlidge]

My understanding is that the BBC will be asked to pick up the tab for that shortly, which I think is fair enough.

As I say, none of us would introduce such things today. They were political measures that bear no relation to contributions to the national insurance system or to the incomes of the recipients. That is the sort of politics we simply cannot afford today. Instead, we should be prepared to look at these measures, and use the savings to support a fair deal for those who have assets and need the care system, as well as to support those in the care system who cannot support themselves. Raising money to support the care system offers the possibility of another aspect of intergenerational fairness. The care sector is desperately short of staff and too many are badly paid. If we raise the money to support the social care sector, which will not be hit by the robot employment era, we have a way to give better paid work to young people and to provide a better career structure to those who might otherwise be on relatively low pay.

I want to finish on the key point made, in an excellent speech, by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). I strongly agree with him on the issue first raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) in relation to the basic pension plus in April 1997 that we should move to a funded system. All our constituents who are pensioners will make the point, “Why should you take this stuff away from me when I have paid into this all my life?” And quite right. Pensioners come to my surgeries worried about having low interest rates on their savings when council tax is going up. They are affected by that. I accept that many of them are not wealthy. In fact, many are struggling. I accept that, but the root of the problem is that we have a pay-as-you-go system. We have vast freebies, such as prescriptions, and nobody feels any link to them. My hon. Friend is right that this is about the contrast between a Government who would be doing the right thing, even though it is not popular, of building towards a funded system, and those in the past who have given out vast freebies at the expense of future generations. The former is the model we should move towards. It may not be popular, but I think the public know that tough decisions have to be made. We should not shy away from them. If we want inter- generational fairness, we will have to have a little bit of intergenerational honesty.