Pensions Bill [Lords]

Debate between Stephen Metcalfe and Malcolm Wicks

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Malcolm Wicks]

Not at the moment, because I want to set out the three assumptions before I deal with the hon. Gentleman’s false—or possibly accurate—assumptions.

The second assumption is that British people live and work in similar ways. It is assumed that we start work and retire at more or less the same. The third assumption is that if we increase—as it appears we will—the pension age and the age of retirement, work will somehow be available. If people do not retire until 66 or 67, it is suggested that this Government’s extraordinarily brilliant economic and employment policies will deliver labour for the people. It is those three assumptions that I wish to question.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Longevity and extended life expectancy are key to this argument. You point out that longevity is not necessarily equally spread across society. Are you saying that certain sectors of society have benefited from improved longevity more than others, and that for some, life expectancy has not risen at all?

[Malcolm Wicks]

Certainly for some people it has not, but broadly speaking it is my understanding that it has risen for all socio-economic groups. My assumption is that it will continue to increase, but it is the differences by social class that the hon. Gentleman’s question enables me to tease out—

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will you give way on that point?

[Malcolm Wicks]

With respect, I think that what I have to say will be helpful to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that he will tell me where I get it wrong, if I do.

I want to analyse mortality by social class. I shall talk about men in particular, although there is a class difference among women too. People in social class 7 tend to be in routine occupations. For example, they might be labourers, van drivers, packers or cleaners; many women would be cleaners. We hear a lot about longevity and how we will all live to 100: the Minister keeps telling us—he issues a press notice every few months—that one fifth or one sixth of us will live to 100. It might surprise the House, therefore, that 19%—almost one fifth—of men from social class 7 die before the age of 65. Almost one fifth of these hard-working working-class people in tough jobs—no doubt they have had tough lives too—die before 65.

I put that point to the Minister and the House because, before glibly raising the pension age to 66 or 67, we need to recognise that many of our fellow citizens do not live to 65. Furthermore, 10% of women in social class 7 die before the age of 60, while among the professional classes, that figure is only 4%. I should have said earlier that, in contrast to the 19% figure, the proportion of men in the professional classes who die before the age of 65 is 7%. So there is a huge social class differential, and if we are not careful—we need to do the arithmetic very carefully—and if we glibly increase the pension age, we might rule out more and more people from ever getting their old age pension.

[Malcolm Wicks]

I recognised the logic of demography and longevity and the need to raise pension ages, but since ceasing to be a Minister of any kind, I have had more opportunity to think about this and to study it—[Laughter.] The Minister might try thinking independently. It is not a bad idea. I would not giggle at the idea that we rethink our positions from time to time. I have rethought my position on this, not least because the Government are going helter-skelter towards raising the pension age in ways that the Labour Government never foresaw.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to you for giving way for a second time. You said that 19% of men in social class 7 die before they reach 65. Of those, how many were in work at the time? Is this a social problem relating to health, or is it caused by the nature of the work that they have done? I ask because I am concerned that we are saying that we cannot raise the pension age because of this particular group, when in fact everyone’s life expectancy, regardless of how tough a life you have, has increased over the past 20 or 50 years.

[Malcolm Wicks]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Wicks]

Yes, but I hope that the hon. Lady will consider my point about CPI and RPI, because we are talking about billions of pounds that could be lost to British pensioners when that change is implemented over coming decades.

Let me reach my conclusion. We suffer from over-generalisations in this field. I am fed up with macho commentators, often from the political, professional and business class, who somehow assume that everyone will live to a ripe old age and that those in their 60s will have portfolios full of all sorts of opportunities—a directorship here, writing a book or doing a television programme there. Many people, not least those on the Government Benches, talk about a world of that kind—I do not want to get the hon. Lady over-excited: she has had many chances to respond, but she knows who I am talking about. Given the typical life cycles for the late 20th and early 21st centuries, more and more of our children and grandchildren will effectively not get started in their careers until their early 20s or even their mid-20s. With the rise of university education, the pattern of many people’s working lives will be like that.

However, that pattern is not at all typical of everyone in our society. When we recall the question that the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) asked about the mortality of those people, let us remember that there are still many working people coming up to retirement who started their working lives as 15 or 16-year-olds. They are the packers, the cleaners, the van drivers, the heavy manual workers and the care workers. By the time they reach retirement they are worn out. They are physically knackered, if I am allowed to use those words. They are tired, they are exhausted and what they need, in an old-fashioned sense, is a rest. They need to retire. They are not people like the hon. Gentleman, who I suspect will still be sprightly in his late 60s and 70s, with his portfolios and all the rest of it; they are physically worn out. They have been working since they were children, and they need a rest.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a powerful argument and some interesting points, but they relate to increasing the state pension age, full stop. This is not an argument about the escalation of that process; it is an argument about whether we should change the age at which people can claim their state pensions, which is separate from the debate that we are currently having.