Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Of course, the equalisation of the pension age does ask people to work for longer in their lives, and it is a big change. But I think that because people are living longer, it is right that we make this change to make sure we can have a good, strong and affordable pension system. The biggest thing we are doing is linking the pension to earnings rather than prices, which means that someone retiring today will be getting £15,000 more over the next period than they would have done under the old plans—so one is partly to pay for the other.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Q8. The last Government left us with one in five young people unemployed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new university technical colleges will help to transform the lives of young people and are a matter of social justice as well as economic efficiency? Will he support Lord Baker in supporting the strong bid of Harlow college to have a UTC so that Harlow—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We get the gist of it.