Social Security

Normally, this House adopts an austere voice when it debates pensioners. However, I want to start by adopting a celebratory voice to talk about pensioners, because if we had no pensioners, we would have to invent them. In my constituency, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and the Minister, pensioners provide a huge public and civic service. There are armies of grandparents dropping off and picking up the children from school and providing babysitting services during the day and in the evenings so that hard-working parents can have a drink at the pub or go out for dinner. Grandparents are hugely important in that role. I hope that all our constituencies have flourishing charitable sectors. Which people are the mainstay of charitable organisations? By and large, they are pensioners—people over the ages of 60 or 65 who are fully engaged with their communities. I am thinking of meals on wheels or taking other elderly people to hospital appointments. Again, I say that if we did not have pensioners, we would have to invent them. The same applies to political parties. I am sure that my constituency is like—