Intergenerational Fairness — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Labor
Richard Harrington (Conservative, Centre-right): Having learned a word from you earlier today, Mr Speaker, I can say that hope we have all learned from the sagaciousness of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), the Chairman of the Select Committee, who started the debate. I am indebted to you, Mr Speaker. At least I have got that on the record—and many other words I have learned from you I seriously thank all Members, on both sides of the House, for their contributions, particularly the members of the Work and Pension Committee who spoke. I appreciate the comments that have been made about the Pensions Regulator securing the settlement with Philip Green. I am very pleased about that. It is good for scheme members, and it will bring peace of mind to the 19,000 BHS pensioners who have endured uncertainty following the company’s collapse. I commend both Select Committees for the work they have done on that issue. I also commend the Pensions Regulator and its staff, who have worked very hard and done everything we could have expected of them This has been an informative and timely debate. Recent evidence shows that pensioner poverty is at a near record low, which is a good thing for a Pensions Minister to be able to say. We have seen a dramatic fall in the percentage of pensioners living in poverty from 40% in the early 1970s to 14% in 2014-15, but I hope that I never give the impression of complacency. Poverty is poverty, and there are still far too many pensioners living in poverty Intergenerational fairness is an easy thing to say. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) talked about his grandparents, and I also come from a generation whose parents knew poverty. They knew unemployment, they knew the war and they knew poverty—[Interruption.] I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker; I was trying to be sagacious in my comments. I was about to mention my mother, who has a photograph of you on her mantelpiece We were brought up hearing people say, "You don’t know you’re born, you lot. You’re so lucky." And we were a lucky generation. One aspect of the luckiness of my generation, as was mentioned by many Members, including the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), is that we were often the first generation to go to university. I want to make it clear that the answer to intergenerational fairness is not to make pensioners poorer; it is to concentrate on building the economy, building extra houses, and having better quality education and apprenticeships. All those things have been described eloquently by many Members, in most cases in what the Americans would call a bipartisan manner. I am pleased to be part of that debate The labour market is the strongest that it has been for years. The employment rate is at a record high, and in the past year we have seen nearly 300,000 more disabled people, over 200,000 more women and over 150,000 more black and minority ethnic people in work, so the signs are pretty good. Rightly, there is cross-party consensus that achieving lower levels of pensioner poverty is a worthy objective. Who would say that it was not? I recognise the valuable work of the Work and Pensions Committee in promoting such issues. It almost goes without saying that we want to ensure that pensioners are treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve in retirement. Anyone in the House, and in the country, would say that The right hon. Member for Birkenhead acknowledged that pensioner poverty had been hugely reduced over the past decade, but he and his Committee are right to look at the long-term alternatives. He said that budgetary matters are important. We cannot talk about the triple lock or any other system without considering the amount of public expenditure involved. I am sure everyone would agree that the Government’s commitment to the triple lock is an invaluable element in addressing the issue of pensioners living on a low income. As a result of the triple lock, the value of the full basic state pension as a proportion of average earnings is at its highest since the 1980s. Since 2010, the triple lock has given current pensioners, more than 1 million of whom rely solely on the state for their income, up to £570 a year more than if their pension were just uprated by earnings. As I and others have stated, that was why we introduced the triple lock in 2011, and it is why we have committed to continuing it over this Parliament. It has protected the income of millions of people.