Pensions Bill

I entirely agree with everything that my hon. Friends the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) and for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) said, so I do not need to say it again, but I wish to make some other points. The direction of travel has changed as a result of Turner and pressure from the pensioners’ movement and Members of this House. We are starting to move in the right direction, very slowly, with very small steps, but I would say to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that many Labour Members will be pushing to go much further than they are suggesting. The pension is far too low, it is still means-tested, and the earnings link has not been restored and will not be for some time yet. I make no bones about the fact that I want a substantially higher pension that is not means-tested—we should use the taxation system to redistribute income instead—with an earnings link restored when the pension reaches the level of 25 per cent., instead of 15 per cent., of earnings. On occupational pensions, if the Government do not secure the system and ensure that people trust in it, believe in it and continue to support it, in the end the only fall-back will be a thoroughgoing state system. That would be perfectly acceptable for a socialist like myself, but not so acceptable, I suspect, for my hon. Friend the Minister. I leave that thought with him. On affordability, I think that that is a nonsense word. If my children had said when they were young, ““Can we have more pocket money??, and I had said, ““I can’t afford it?, they would have said, ““That’s nonsense, dad—we know you can afford it?, and they would have been right. What I would have meant was, ““I choose not to give you any more pocket money?, which is a very different matter. Compared with other countries in Europe, particularly those in Scandinavia, Germany and France, we have a lower gross tax take and a lower level of public spending on public services. I want to see much higher levels of both. The Scandinavian economies are very successful, and we could go much further in their direction. Affordability is a non-argument: what it means is, ““We choose not to give you higher pensions because we don’t want to pay for them.? That is unacceptable. I want much higher pensions for our pensioners that are comparable with pensions incomes in other developed countries, and I am perfectly happy to have a much more progressive system of taxation to pay for it. I understand from a recent written answer that there is a massive surplus of £73 billion in the national insurance fund. If the upper earnings limit on national insurance contributions was removed, that would equate to an extra £6.5 billion. There is plenty of money, but it happens to be in the wrong pockets. We should take the money from those who may have too much and give it to those who have too little, the majority of whom happen to be our pensioners. I want a redistributive taxation system and much higher pensions without means-testing.