Pensions (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill

Debate between Paul Maynard and James Gray

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Public Bill Committees

[James Gray]

Before the Minister does that, does he agree that one person who would have been very pleased by this legislation is that great champion of pensions and of pensioners, Frank Field, who died yesterday? He was a great man and a great gentleman.

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful for that intervention, because I should have thought to start my speech by paying tribute to Frank Field and the immense amount of work he did in the Department for Work and Pensions. He was a thoughtful and humane man, respected on both sides of the House, and I am more than happy to join in paying tribute to him.

Being told that one is nearing the ends of one’s life can be a devastating and frightening experience. It is crucial that those reaching the final stages of their life do not have to worry as much about their finances and can focus on spending their time with the people who matter to them. The Bill takes us one step further toward ensuring that that can happen, building on the changes made back in 2022. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury for promoting the Bill, and I commend it to the Committee.

First-time Buyers

Debate between Paul Maynard and James Gray

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Owen Smith]

I am listening with interest to—perhaps “enjoying” is the wrong word—the hon. Gentleman’s comments. In his tour de force on the history of the left and its attitude to social housing, will he return to Nye Bevan and the great period of the invention of social housing in the aftermath of the second world war, and point to who on the left, in the Labour party, thinks of social housing as just a matter of social engineering?

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

With regard to first-time buyers, of course.

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning Nye Bevan, because in the interest of brevity, I had crossed out my paragraph on him. I shall reintroduce it into my speech.

It was well known that what Nye Bevan wanted to do—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman might like to return to the subject under debate, namely, Government help for first-time buyers. Nye Bevan can wait for some other time.

[Paul Maynard]

Thank you, Mr Gray. I shall bear that advice in mind.

It is vital that the receipts from the new right-to-buy initiative are reinvested in affordable rented social housing, as I know has been made clear. The key aspect of the issue is the turnover of tenants in social housing. There needs to be an escalator. People may start off in a vulnerable situation needing full tenancies, but they need to be able to move swiftly and quickly on and escalate as high up as they wish. If that leads to home ownership, that is a good thing. However, we need to have fluidity in the social housing market, which we have not had under, I would suggest, any Government. The changes that the Government are announcing this week and those that are contained in last year’s housing Green Paper mark the start of trying to regard our housing stock as an asset for the whole community that is not geographically restricted.

Two of my favourite architects are Alison and Peter Smithson, a married couple who built many modernist buildings—probably many of them in Milton Keynes. Some of their views were bizarre, and they had a vision for housing. While they wanted to see the rubbish chute replace the village pump, somehow they believed that putting us all in high-rise blocks would enhance the bonds of community. As a Conservative—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, but I fear that the hon. Gentleman is launching into something of a tour de force on the whole of housing policy. We have to focus. Two other hon. Members are trying to catch my eye before I call the Front Benchers. Perhaps he could focus his attention specifically on Government help for first-time buyers and possibly, out of courtesy to the two other hon. Members, wind up his remarks quite soon.

[Paul Maynard]

Thank you, Mr Gray, for your help. I shall therefore come to an end by quoting one of our predecessors, Mr David Eccles, a Member of Parliament for Chippenham, who said in 1948:

“Men are partly selfish and partly idealist, and they give their best when they believe they have a reasonable chance to put something in their pockets and to realise a fragment of their dreams.”

That is what the Government have been doing and what we need to keep on doing. I shall give way so that the two following Members have their chance.