Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

Older Women

Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I am sorry that this debate is necessary, because I hate to hear women being talked about as though they are a race apart or a bunch of lame ducks—we are half the population, after all. I look forward to the day when such debates are no longer required.

Today's debate has focused mainly on pensions, and I shall not go into the technicalities of pensions and benefits in the august company of many experts, but I know that a large percentage of older women left school young without qualifications and that many never worked outside the home at all. There are also those who had a mixed record of wartime outwork—if anyone can remember what that was—during which they collected bulk items of sewing to do at home or did light assembly work. They also split mica, and although I am not sure what mica was or what it was used for, women used to split it and it was jolly unpleasant. Women also cared for their families—both the older and younger generations—and worked in their homes without the benefit of modern appliances. They juggled that with spasmodic periods of low-paid employment outside the home, all of which meant that they had no personal pension to show for an arduous existence. Some older women had rewarding employment, paid national insurance contributions and earned a pension in their own right.

The Liberal Democrats' policy is unfair in that respect—the effort of those individuals should not be disregarded.

I recall the 1960s, when married women were given the option of giving up paying the full national insurance contribution and paying a reduced married woman's contribution. There were obvious risks in that, not least the failure of the marriage, or if the wife was much younger than the husband, there was a considerable wait until he was 65 before she could draw a pension on the strength of his contributions. My personal recollection is that the provision of information was very good, and I was in no doubt whatever about what was being offered and what the likely pitfalls were, but I accept that many women claim that they did not understand at the time the disadvantage that they were storing up for themselves in the future.

May I commend to the House the Conservative party policy, which will link the pension to earnings? The Conservatives will increase the single person's pension by £7 a week and a couple's pension by £11, on top of increases for price inflation, over four years. The pension credit will not be abolished, but of course as the state pension increases in line with earnings, fewer pensioners will be eligible.

Vera Baird: I am slightly puzzled by what the hon. Lady says, because if the basic state pension is to be index-linked, there will be no increase in the number of people coming off pension credit, as that too is linked to earnings. The two things will increase in parallel. The Conservatives will help off the minimum income guarantee element of the pension credit only those people who currently are about £6.99 below the MIG level—no one else will ever move off it. That is unless, of course, the basic state pension will go up with earnings but the Tories will freeze, and link to prices, the minimum income guarantee. That is the only way that it can be done. Is that what is going on?

Angela Watkinson: I was going to thank the hon. and learned Lady for her intervention, but I am now reluctant to do so. Her assumption about the parallel
lines is misguided. The differential will change, and the value of the pension will rise so that more pensioners will be lifted out of means-testing.

Mr. Waterson: I am listening very carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying. As she knows, no one would lose under our proposals, but is she aware that despite several opportunities to speak up in the Chamber the Government are still being very coy about whether it would be their intention, if by some mischance they were elected to a third term, to increase the pension credit in line with prices or earnings? Is it not a bit rich for them to criticise us when they, the current Government, have not even formed a view about it?

Angela Watkinson: I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification.

There is another in-built advantage to our proposals in that, as pensioners no longer rely on the means test, their savings will be freed from Government scrutiny, and a pound saved for retirement will mean a pound more for income in retirement.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): I believe that one of the hon. Lady's political heroines is Lady Thatcher. Is she aware that it is now almost 25 years since that meanest of Acts resulted in the decoupling of pensions from pay? Does she accept that that has contributed more towards the poverty of present-day pensioners, particularly elderly females, than any other single Government move in recent times?

Angela Watkinson: One of the main reasons for women's inadequate pensions and their poverty in old age is the fact that they have been unable to work outside the home or they have not had the same opportunities as men to do so. We will put that right by linking pensions to earnings.

The policy has received support from such august sources as the Institute for Public Policy Research, an editorial in The Observer, no less, the Equal Opportunities Commission and that robust and quite scary body, the London Pensioners Forum. If anyone has ever done battle with the latter, they will know that it is a force to be reckoned with. An Age Concern survey found that "nine out of ten pensioners receiving Pension Credit want the Government to provide a higher Basic State Pension . . . 73 per cent. believe that means testing puts people off applying for the benefit".

On a related subject, elderly women in particular like to receive their pension using their pension book at their local post office. Upminster, which is part of the London borough of Havering, is subject to the Post Office's urban reinvention programme—a weasel-worded way of saying, "We are going to close your post offices." Many elderly women who have never worked outside the home regard the collection of their pension as a social occasion, because they meet people and know the sub-postmaster. All their life, they have budgeted in cash on a weekly basis, and that is how they wish to continue. The changes have therefore been very upsetting for them. If their post office has closed they have to rely on a neighbour to collect their pension, or if they still have a post office, they have been pressed to have their pension paid into a bank account, which many of them do not want. They are supposed to have the option of opening a Post Office card account, but they have to be very persistent to do so, because the system is extremely off-putting. Small details such as remembering a PIN number are a distressing change of habit for them, and are a break in the way in which they have managed their finances all their life.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): The hon. Lady will be aware that more than 3 million people have already opened a Post Office card account. We have the means to ensure that whatever account people choose they can access those funds at the post office. She is right, however, that we need the post office network, so does she accept that the Liberal Democrat proposal to wipe out the £2 billion that we are putting into that network by scrapping the Department of Trade and Industry will not help those women pensioners?

Angela Watkinson: In one post office in my constituency, the good ladies genuinely believed that they would be listened to if they responded to the consultation and that it would make a difference if they signed the petition. Their post office, however, has been closed, and the alternative is two bus rides away, so the closure programme has resulted in some worrying injustices.

Vera Baird: I am interested in what the hon. Lady is saying, but what have the Conservatives ever done for women pensioners in the past? Home responsibilities protection was a Labour measure, and everything introduced since 1997 to help women out of poverty has been a Labour measure. What have the Conservatives ever done for women pensioners?

Angela Watkinson: The Conservatives have done a great deal for women, because the country became wealthy under a Conservative Government, and that prosperity was available to everyone, including pensioners, who are part of the community.

I want to refer to mixed-sex wards, which are an utter disgrace. I accept that there are moves to do away with them, but they still exist. It is upsetting enough to go into hospital, but older women find it humiliating and embarrassing to be in a mixed-sex ward. When my mother-in-law was in a geriatric ward in Whipps Cross hospital, she shared a room with many elderly gentlemen with prostate difficulties who had to get out of bed every few minutes. They had to walk up and down the ward using certain appliances in front of ladies, which was a wholly unsuitable arrangement. The patients do not like such arrangements, which are as bad for men as for women, and neither do the staff. I look forward to the day when a policy of no more mixed-sex wards is implemented.

A new hospital in Oldchurch in Romford, covering the London borough of Havering, is due to be opened next year. I asked for a reassurance that there would be no mixed-sex wards in that hospital, but I did not get an unequivocal response. I was told that there would be separate bays for male and female patients, with partitions, and that there would be separate facilities for them, but that is not quite the same as completely segregated wards, which is what patients want for privacy and dignity. I believe that that would be supported by staff.
Finally, breast cancer screening has focused on women up to the age of 70. I welcome the extension of screening to women between 65 and 70, but there is no mention of women over 70 in the programme. They are encouraged to make their own appointment. However, many older women are of the old school, where one did not make a fuss. If asked whether they were all right, they would always say they were, even if they were not. My own mother was a case in point. We need to include women over 70 in the programme or introduce some method whereby they are reminded that they need to continue having regular screening, as that age group is most vulnerable to breast cancer.

I look forward to the day when we no longer need policies for women—when we just need policies.

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I was slightly disappointed by the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), who offered many fine words but no proposals to help women now aged 60 until they are 75, with the legion problems of pension eligibility that have been discussed today, and which were discussed last week and in all the proceedings on the Pensions Bill.

Among recently retired men, 90 per cent. have a full basic state pension. Only 25 per cent. of recently retired women have a full basic state pension. The hon. Member for Northavon has nothing to say about them except that they will come to a second retiring age, so to speak, when they are 75. At that point they will start to get as of right, on some curious and not fully explained basis, an increment that will bring them up to the level of the minimum income guarantee, which many of them will have been getting before that on a means-tested basis. I am disappointed that even though the hon. Gentleman says that he is proposing a new idea, he does not deal with the problems that concern pensioners now and will concern those who are due to retire in the next 15 or more years.

The hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) seemed to think that the Conservatives' policy was marvellous. As I understand it, the Tories would restore the link to earnings, which they destroyed 25 years ago. They more or less—this is not unfair—froze the level of the basic state pension for a very long time indeed, leading to the vast numbers of pensioners who were in poverty when we took office and requiring us to bring in the minimum income guarantee.

Now, by way of redress 25 years later, the Tories would link the pension to earnings so that over the four years of a Parliament, a person with a full basic state pension would have it increased by £7. That is all that would be given. However, as I mentioned, 75 per cent. of women do not have a basic state pension, so what would they get out of this great gift from the Tories? At best, £5 on average, on £50 over four years. How will that help? It is proposed as some kind of answer to means-tested benefits that will start the crusade towards a good basic state pension and a reduction in the means-testing of benefits, but of course it will not achieve that.

The proposal means that men who are £7 below the level of the pension credit will get to the level of the pension credit.

People with an income £6 below the pension credit of £105 will be out of means-testing by £1 after four years. The band of people who are up to £6.99 below the minimum income guarantee may have the satisfaction of being brought off means-tested benefit by a penny or two, but that is a relatively small number of people, and guess what—the Conservative party favours the better-off. Only those who are close to the minimum income guarantee will get any benefit at all, but the benefit is trivial.

Angela Watkinson: Does the hon. and learned Lady oppose the restoration of the link to earnings for pensions?

Vera Baird: I oppose the absurd notion that current Tory policy bears any relation to the problems in the pension system. It is utter falsity to suggest that it has anything to do with significantly rolling back means-tested benefit. The figures produced by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) suggest that approximately one quarter of pensioners will be brought off means-tested benefit. I doubt whether that is right, but if it is, in many cases pensioners will be brought off means-tested benefit by a matter of pennies.

Those who are not on means-tested benefit will get £7 on top at the end of four years and be £7 richer, but they were richer in the first place, because they were not on means-tested benefit. On the shadow Secretary of State's own figures, three quarters of the people who are currently on means-tested benefit will still be on it at the end of four years. The policy will not roll back means-testing in any way.

Angela Watkinson: Will the hon. and learned Lady accept that pensioner bodies have demanded the restoration of the earnings link for some considerable time?

Mr. Webb: Twenty-five years.

Vera Baird: Yes, pensioners demanded the restoration of the link 25 years ago, when the Tories scrapped it. Happily, the current climate among pension pressure groups is to re-examine that demand, not to set it aside, and to consider eligibility, which the Conservative party completely ignores. How is the Conservative policy a boon to women pensioners, whose problems were admirably set out by the hon. Member for Northavon? Save for £5, if they happen to be within £5 of the minimum income guarantee, how will it help them? The policy is a fake.

The other flaw in the argument is that it is alleged that the first four years, which will provide £7 extra and bring those who are just below the minimum income guarantee above it, are just the start of the policy. Conservative Members claim that in years to come the basic state pension will keep increasing because it is index linked to wages and, as the hon. Member for Upminster puts it, more and more people will come off means-tested benefit.

The minimum income guarantee element of the pension credit is also linked to earnings, so it runs side by side with the basic state pension. People will come off means-tested benefit only if the minimum income guarantee is frozen, which means that the income of the other three quarters of pensioners, whom the shadow Secretary of State is content to leave on means-tested benefit throughout, will gradually decrease, and they are, by definition, the poorest pensioners. The Tory policy really amounts to giving more money, and not very much of it at that, to the rich.

How will giving a little bit more money to the relatively rich be paid for? The new deal, which has put 1 million people back in work, including enormous numbers of people in constituencies such as mine, would have to be scrapped. If the Conservatives have any interest in the regions, scrapping the new deal is another risible policy, and it is class based.