28/02/2017 House of Commons

the debate on intergenerational fairness, the whip to move the

motion formerly. The question is as on the order paper. Mr Field. In

some ways it could not be a better day to have this debate following

the previous debate because it is graciously referred to by the

previous debates and the leader of the chair of the business Select

Committee, we get today an announcement from Sir Philip Green

of part of a settlement that has to be made to bring justice both to BHS

workers but also to the pensioners. It also showed how when to select

committees work together, they can be more powerful than the sum of

parts of each of the committees. I would only emphasise and continue to

emphasise my very honourable friend emphasised that here is a first

piece of the puzzle that has been put in place on pensions. We have

not had a chance to read the small print, one hopes it is as good as

the headline. There are a number of reports still outstanding which are

from the Inland Revenue, which has arrested Dominic Chappel, the person

that wisely or foolishly bought BHS for a pound, the liquidators report,

the Serious Fraud Office report and the insolvency services report. The

primers to has made plain she will not make -- the Prime minister has

made plain she will not make any move on making a recommendation for

the forfeiture committee to begin its work on considering whether Sir

Philip should keep his knighthood until she has access to all those

reports. An immensely sensible move to make and one that would expect

from someone who is as careful as she is before making decisions like

this but all that I would add is while we know that seeing justice

through the rest of those reports, the revenue report, the Serious

Fraud Office, the liquidators, the insolvency service is clearly in the

longer run much more important than any knighthood. Sometimes in the

country people look at the sacrament of changes which sum up the

government has taken on board how horrendous they thought the BHS

chaos was. I'm obviously not going to talk any

more about that, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you have been kind

that in me make a follow-up statement, on this of all days. One

we follow a report, we have a debate from DWP. We are joining forces to

look carefully at a longer term solution for pensioners, for

workers, for what it means to public companies and a whole host of

issues. We began that work together as two select committees and I'm

pleased that the two debates have been joined together. We are using

this privilege to occupy the Chamber of the House of Commons to debate

our report on intergenerational fairness and I'm pleased to see a

number of members of the select committee and others are here you

will wish to make a contribution and if I keep disappearing to do some

comments on Sir Philip Green, I hope I will be allowed leniency. Normally

I would sit here for the whole three hours. What I was stressed by way of

introduction as two points. One is that intergenerational fairness is a

huge, huge topic. The problem in select committee or select

committees join together is where do you actually begin on this topic to

make sense of it? We have looked as a select committee and made

recommendations to this house on the triple lock and that is going to be,

of course, the main point of my debate, but I agree with people we

could've started on other topics and looked at in the --

intergenerational fairness from that aspect, but that is where we began

our enquiries. I hope you understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, as

my introductory speech and falls, you will see there are more

immediate pressures for looking at this area than the art at other

aspects of intergenerational fairness, but there are other

aspects to consider. I am extremely grateful for him giving way so early

in his speech and I would like to make a point at this point because

does he not agree with me that at its absolute fundamental core there

are people in our society who will succeed because they have assets,

but if you are talent rich, but asset poor, it is by all likelihood

unlikely that you will succeed in life, both in terms of educational

attainment and health outcomes. We need to make sure everyone has the

best our economy can deliver, whether you are born into assets or

not. I could not agree with that Moore. He'll forgive me if I don't

follow it up because I know my colleagues want to talk on those

other aspects such as education and how that beers chilly-macro bears on

-- and how that bears on the situation. I was struck between my

life chances and people of my age when I set out to a living after

university, the difference in the life chances and mine. When I

graduated, I was one of 3% and people might say we can look at that

and see which cohort you belong to, but it was a very privileged cohort.

I went to university, I did not pay fees and one got a county

scholarship to see us through university and we did not come away

with debt. When we graduated, we interviewed big firms, as to whether

we wish to work for them. The idea that graduates in that position now

as they scramble for jobs, it is a very different world. I expected to

get a job, I expected to own at least the house, if not more than

one house. I expected to have savings, I expected to have a

pension. One only has to look at how privileged my life has been compared

with people in their 20s as they graduate today to realise that the

wheel of Fortune has turned and whatever one wants to say about the

golden oldies, we are in a very privileged position and that

privilege has been reinforced by the government, a point that I will come

back to in a moment. But the second of the issues I wanted to raise by

way of introduction, because as a committee we wanted to look at the

triple lock. We wanted to test it, whether it was viable for the next

Parliament and beyond and if it wasn't, could we marshal a report on

which everything was reviewed and where political parties go slowly

moved before they make decisions about what they are going to stand

for in the election and possibly 2020, in other words, we see our

role now as a select committee of taking on controversial topics,

letting government and opposition judge for themselves what nuclear

warfare is employed against us and if we are still standing, maybe

governments can be perhaps a little bit more raised than they would have

been. That is not to say that there are not a number of very poor

constituents in all of our constituencies, but the position of

pension policy has been transformed over the past ten, 15 years, and

that was done by Gordon Brown's pension credit and done by the

coalition government's triple lock. Whereas if we were having a debate

ten years ago, talking about not making moves to benefit the vast

majority of pensioners, one will be laughed out of court. Now the debate

has significantly changed and why it has changed and why you want to get

onto the main part of that debate now, I don't want anybody to think

that we have not got to rack our brains in thinking how can we

sensitively but equally effectively ensure that we continue to deal with

those pensioners who are poor because you don't have to be a very

bright member of Parliament to know all of us have some very poor

pensioners, but we also have now a growing number of rich pensioners,

thank God. It's again that background that we consider the

whole business about the triple lock. There are, it seems to me, for

Wes government can deal with this issue. It can in the first place

ignore it and just let the public finances let rip and depend on the

international money markets to come up and the ever shovel off loans at

very low rates of interest so that we can continue right into the

sunset to live beyond our means. I don't think for a minute that the

very low historic interest rates we have at the moment are going to last

that long, let alone to have a government that was deciding that we

would have the next Parliament committed to the triple lock. I just

don't see that our public finances will be secure unless governments

take a deep breath and think very carefully about our report. I also

make a plea to our front bench, the Labour front bench. People are

saying now it is impossible to see another Labour government then

everybody's life time, but funnier things have happened this year,

funnier than the election of a Labour government, so I wouldn't

actually bank on Labour being unelectable. The problem we don't

have two as a party to consider how fiscally responsible we have to be

that election. The second way of dealing with not tackling the triple

lock would be to say we're going to increase taxation. If we go down

that route, we need to raise the same amount of money that we would

have to raise if we were going to borrow it. By 2060, we are talking

about raising in today's money and additional ?40 billion. That's half

the sum that we raise from income tax. Were talking about were going

to go to the country and say, we want to be elected, we expect to be

continuously elected on a bases that we are going to put your income tax

up by 50%. I just don't think that is a position we will be able to

hold very long and indeed, when we look at the marginal tax rates, not

the rich, but the working poor pay in drawing benefits and losing

benefits as they work harder, the idea of putting 10p on the standard

rate of tax, it seems so observed that hardly -- that there is hardly

any point in suggesting it, but it's the second way we can square the

circle in keeping the triple lock. The third one is to continue the

policy that this government and previous governments have done a man

is to favour pensioners and reduce the living standards of the working

population. I do not think that is tenable. I don't believe it is

tenable now, but that is what will happen until the end of Parliament,

certainly not beyond that because we are taking resources from the

working population and giving it to many pensioners who are well off.

Again I emphasise because people sometimes want to hear what they

want to hear rather than what is being said, I'm not denying that

there are too many poor pensioners, but the vast majority of pensioners

now have a standard of living of the kind that we have not experienced

for the pensioner population before and thank God we have got that. But

the reduction in living standards for the working poor is beginning to

already show that some people of working age are reduced to

destitution. Thank you for giving way. On that point, one of the most

heartbreaking aspects of this is that 73% of working parents already

go without a meal during the school holidays the feed their children. Is

that not an indictment on exactly where we're going wrong right now is

a country and society? It is and it could not be better timed because

those of you who followed very closely the Archbishop of

Canterbury's Christmas message, it gave one example of feeding

Birkenhead where a family were laying their child into one of the

waste bins of the supermarket to scavenge for food and then rescuing

the child out to see what food they had. Nabis mother is suffering from

cancer. She is now fed by feeding Birkenhead on food that would

otherwise go to the tip. But she says she has never been fed. Is this

House prepared to continue policies that put pressure on working aged

families to the situation that one being an exceptional comment, but

one more and more of us will be troubled with in our constituencies

as we see people not feeding themselves, as the honourable lady

stated, but much more regularly than just in the school holidays. There

is a question of destitution. I'll happily give way. I agree with the

argument he is developing, but what he is suggesting will be politically

unpalatable. Does he agree that since the majority of health care

costs we generate in the extremes of our lives, one way or selling this

to be population, particularly to those principally in the frame, that

is to say pensioners, it's to say that the 2.5% on the triple lock

might be hypothecated to the National Health Service and in that

way gained some level of acceptance from pensioners? Again, I couldn't

agree more, but I didn't want to fan out the debate. I want as much as

possible to keep it tight so we might get some agreement. These are

proper options that might be considered. There is no way, sadly,

that we as pensioners can get all the goodies and considering other

people wallpaper options for us. We need to look at how we will

integrate care into the NHS is an issue that will grow and grow in

importance as each month passes of this Parliament. The fourth way we

could deal with keeping the triple lock would be to continuously raise

the retirement age, and again here I make a plea to our front bench is --

benches, this will adversely affect our constituents more than any other

policy. The select committee has published those constituencies where

the average life expectancy for males will be such that they simply

won't reach retirement age if we square the books by saying we will

increase the retirement age from the expected 68 that it will rise to up

to 70, 70 one. My Right Honourable friend from

Oldham and Saddleworth and my constituents have commonality here.

We thank God that role man on average will receive that pension if

we raise the retirement age to 71, but we do know that swathes of our

poorer, older constituents won't actually reach the retirement line.

The point in which they pick up the state retirement pension. They

simply will have died. So the four options that we have to consider

our, Madam Deputy Speaker, just simply not worry at all... Before I

start, why not. As usual, the Right Honourable gentleman is making an

excellent and well conceived speech. Surely, though, there is a case to

be made, given that average life expectancy has increased from 71 in

1960 281 now and 9.9 million people over 50 are working.

Notwithstanding, it is different for very heavy, industrial work which

killed a lot of people shortly after they retired that people do want to

work longer and they want to exercise that choice.

Notwithstanding what he has said. I wouldn't for a moment- look at me-

say that people over state retirement age will not be allowed

to work. Far be it. But there is a difference between people who have

had a job like I have not had, who are just simply worn out by the cost

of those jobs in factories and elsewhere, who are not going to make

it to be finishing line if we keep extending the finishing line, and

therefore I am making a plea today not to go down the route. We can

keep the triple lock but if we just keep raising the retirement age,

fewer people will drop the state pension and balance it. That was one

of the alternatives. The second one was just to continue putting all the

weight, all the costs, onto people of working age, and I made a plea

why we should not do that. The other is to think that we can just tax and

tax gain, and I simply do not think governments can get elected on the

basis of putting up income tax by 50% over a number of Parliament and

expect to be elected. I do not think any party that wishes to be elected

can let borrowing blip to the effect that we would have to let it rip to

balance the books and keep the triple lock. I therefore make this

plea, but to Government and the opposition, to look carefully at

what the Select Committee has proposed. It proposes a double lock

and also by 2020 the effects of pension credit and the coalition's

Government, the triple lock, have already but will continue to raise

the value of the state retirement pension is against average earnings

to a historic high level. And the Select Committee report says, at

that point, we should take the state pension is against earnings at that

level. And that we should have a double lock, and we should also

ensure that it never, ever, from that day forward, falls against

average earnings, but there will be in the very short run may be a

period when prices exceed earnings but we should therefore honour the

prices link at the same time. But then bring it back to the earnings

link as soon as possible. In that way, many of the terrible scenarios

that I have been painting we don't actually have to go down. But also,

as my honourable friend from Stokes said, the policy that we have had

and which has been borne by people of working age in this country, that

we can continue to take money from this group, and particularly those

who now already find it difficult to put food on the table at every meal

for their children in the way that we knew when we were growing up and

were fed by our parents. That is not a policy that we are going to

pursue. It is on that basis that I am betting both sides that if they

came here with a script today saying they will reject the Select

Committee report, I would like to encourage them to enter into

discussions more widely with the House of Commons about how we can

guarantee that the standard of living against earnings that the

pensioners will have in 2020 to make sure it is never a road it, but this

policy of making increases at the expense of the working population

will cease and that we all put that programme to the electorate when

that general election comes. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is

a real pleasure to follow the honourable member for Birkenhead,

widely respected, thoughtful comments. Sometimes difficult for

the Government, sometimes difficult for the opposition, but always

comments that we should all take heed of and listen very, very

carefully. This debate nearly passed me by until I saw a quote within the

report which said an economy that is skewed towards baby boomers and

against millenials, and it panicked me, because we all have our all --

own calling into politics and I went to one of the schools at the bottom

of the league tables in Kidderminster. My father died at an

early age and many of my friends did not fulfil their potential and I was

driven that everybody can be successful, is given the right

opportunity, if equipped with the right skills, sometimes the right

lock, and the right support, the right direction, and all too many

people, very, very good friends of mine did not take that path and have

missed out. It is bad for them and bad for the economy and it is bad

for society. And I looked at this quote and I worried because, to me,

it was one versus the other rather than the core principle that we have

a duty to do our very best by everybody. And I know a lot of

people will focus their comments on the triple lock - is it right? Are

we doing too much for pensioners? Should we be doing it in a different

way? And I would just gently say that I was to focus my comments on

younger generation and that I think we all did welcome the triple lock.

It had been for a long time that we had underserved those who had worked

hard all of their life and I would urge caution that once you get to

the age to get your pension, you are limited with your opportunities to

change your circumstances. You have either fulfilled your potential,

there is not really much more opportunity to do that, and

therefore you have reached that finish line and I know the

honourable member for Birkenhead talked about that finishing line and

we do have to respect that therefore their incomes are predominately

fixed and we have to do our best by them. I'm very honourable -- battle

for giving way. -- thankful. Does he share a concern that we must not

allow our thoughts to be coloured by pensioners retiring right now, that

ten or 15 years from now benefit schemes will be gone and people will

be in a much worse position than those who are retiring next year? I

thank the honourable gentleman for giving way. I am thankful that we

have a fantastic pensions minister who will respond to that point. But

the broader point is, as I now turn to the opportunities for younger

people is we all collectively have a responsibility, as a Government, as

oppositions, to recognise that we have a habit of spending more money

than the tax revenue that we get in. I think since the Second World War

there has only been six years with the Government of the date have

spent less money than they have collected. And what that really

means, in plain English, is we, as that generation of that year, wish

to have more than we can afford and we would like our children, or maybe

our children's children, to then pay for the privilege of that. And that

is all governments because that has affected everybody by these six

years. And we have a duty, a moral duty, a responsibility to future

generations, to not always take that easy decision. I was doing a radio

interview yesterday, on a relatively contentious issue, and it was

talking about the additional costs that the Government might wish to

spear, and there was another MP and he said if I was the Minister I

wouldn't have taken the hit. But the key was it was not they had that

would have taken the hit. It is everybody. And as we are already

spending more money than we are collecting in, what they are really

saying is I will pass that on as well to the next generation, and we

all know that and we would like to be able to balance the books

immediately but also we have a very long list of her own personal

priorities, our inboxes are full of helpful requests from residents on

where we could spend more money on them and many of those are very,

very important, and there is always a balance, but I just wanted to

generally remind the house we should not lose sight of the fact that if

we wish to give the very best opportunities to the next

generations, we need to not saddle them with too much of our

overspending. I am inherently a very positive person, and I believe that

if we do equip people, we do give people that opportunity, they will

seize it with both hands and they will make a huge success. So I am

greatly encouraged that our Government has delivered 1.8 million

more outstanding school places. And as I said, as somebody who went to a

school at the bottom of the league tables, I understand that importance

of equipping people with those skills going forward, and in my

constituency in Swindon we have had a difficult Ofsted report recently

and we got fantastic teachers who are all trying their very best in

Swindon, we have secured extra funding for schools. But we're not

quite there yet. And we all, the Government, MPs, the council,

schools collectively, the parents, we all have to look and see what

more can be done. And I am encouraged that the school ministers

visited two of my local schools recently, both transforming the

opportunities for their children, both coming from not so long ago

very difficult and very poor ratings, frankly failing the

children that were relying on them to equip them and they are both

transformed their ratings to strong leadership and I am delighted that

yesterday Ofsted confirmed that one of those schools had moved too good

in all categories, and I paid credit to Mr Martin, the headteacher and

all of his staff who have worked incredibly hard to do that. And this

is the fundamental building block to equip young people to then take on

life. But I am also a huge fan of the National citizens service. This

is a new initiative that is being brought forward that in effect gives

young adults pose real, tangible life skills, and every summer,

without fail, I go and visit every single stage of the 3-4 week

programme, where they take a random collection of young people, and it

is about ?1500 worth of activities were they all go away for a weekend

to learn team-building skills, they will then come back, they will form

teams were they will choose a charity, they will learn about the

charity, they will then organise entrepreneurial activities to fund

raise for that charity. They will go and volunteer at the charity to see

at first hand. They will have to do presentation skills and haggling and

engaging. And at the end of the day, they then graduate as these

students. And there is an incredible transformation in all of those young

adults, who have arrived, well educated by the schools, but perhaps

not quite ready for the workplace. And as somebody who run their own

business for ten years and employed a lot of young people to see the

huge difference in those young adults who had taken the time over

there summer holiday where it is very tempting to do many other less

constructive things over the summer, to go and do that, to go and engage,

and they have given themselves the very best opportunity when entering

into the workplace. We have continued to see university numbers

increase, but likely, rightly, the Government has put a huge emphasis

on apprenticeships. Because for generations, governments and

opposition parties, we had an arms race on students going to

university, every general election, we have sent 25%, we will do 45%, we

will break the 50%. And what we have to do is make sure everybody and

everybody has got a talent. I look at, say, David Beckham will stop not

renowned for being academic. But he has a gift that has earned more

money in a week than probably the majority of people in society will

earn at any point. And it was because somebody recognise that

skill and they allowed him to develop that. We all have a skill. I

am sure... Sometimes, actually, every time I failed to make it on

the sports teams, I wondered whether I did not have a talent and perhaps

that is why I am here, but everybody has a talent and the apprenticeships

rightly recognise this to workplace learning you can provide people with

real, tangible skills. With a fantastic opportunity to secure a

long-term career and good career prospects. But also vital for our

growing economy, particularly where we have those skills gaps. At the

last Parliament, we had the commitment of a target. And it will

be tough to get there, but likely, you need those challenging targets,

and I expect, and I'm sure all members of this house have spent a

lot of time is meeting with those young apprentices doing advanced

engineering, computing, all of these things, brilliant, brilliant

careers. And they will all go on and be a huge success and across the

economy this Government has now delivered a record 2.7 million

people more in work than when we came to office in 2010. And this is

not just London or the South East, which we have seen in previous

strong economic performances, it isn't every single region of the

country. My own town of Swindon, 8400 more people are in work. That

is greater than the number who are currently going on a weekly basis to

seek Swindon fighting their relegation battle, and thankfully we

have got a bit closer with our victory at the weekend. We now have

860,000 fewer workless households and youth unemployment is lower. In

Swindon, it is down to 69.2% since 2010 among young people. That is a

fantastic achievement. Rightly, the Government has introduced the

National Living Wage, looking at a wage of around about ?9 by 2020,

helping 6 million of the lowest earners have a pay rise, sharing in

the proceeds of the strong economic growth that we have delivered.

The increases in the personal tax threshold has taken millions of the

lowest earners out of paying any tax at all. The index link will make

sure the lowest earners will never return to a point of paying tax

again. My honourable friend is making an excellent speech based on

his expertise as a former minister. We share something in common in that

our towns and cities, Swindon and Peterborough, are the two largest

places in the UK without a university. Does he agree with me it

is important we build on Apprentices with university technical colleges,

so that young people not of an academic bent can be persuaded to

person of vocational education, so important for the future economy?

Thank you for the powerful intervention. A real champion of his

constituency. Regarding universities, in my constituency, we

benefit from having a huge influx of graduates. The network of local

universities within striking distance of Swindon. Which is why we

see such strong economic growth. He is right to highlight the importance

of technical colleges. We had one of the first one is open in Swindon, a

?10 million facility. It had teething problems, but the principle

is fantastic. It has identifying those who ultimately would be doing

advanced engineering work, technical work, and allowing them to work with

local businesses who will help shape that curriculum. That means they

will have the best chance of having a career at the end of it. The

challenge with university technical colleges is how you attract the very

best and most able students for that type of education at 14. Not

unsurprisingly, schools, and they are all judged by league tables, are

not always brilliantly keen to encourage their most able students

to transfer because it will have a detrimental effect on their league

tables. I would urge the schools minister to consider having a dual

score going into the league table with the student still remains

attributed to the original school and lettuce share with the UTC.

Therefore there would be the opportunity for them to say they are

doing great but they can't do better. It is making a huge

difference. Not everybody has that opportunity to walk straight into

work. And therefore, as a society, we have a duty to ensure our job

centre network is at its most able to support people. Asked I wasn't

the Minister responsible during my time in DWP, we had joint meetings

and I got very excited about the need to refresh our job centre

network. I have been on a number of visits and I was fundamentally

depressed when I saw the 1970s concrete structures, the security

guard who understandably is needed, but imagine you're going to a job

centre and almost certainly nervous and to be greeted by a security

guard, bleak surroundings, not celebrating successes, not

highlighting the people of gone through the same challenges you know

you how to overcome and they have similar circumstances to you, they

haven't celebrated that. I went to a community hub. A number of people

who are far away from entering the workplace. Bright colours, great

furniture. The security guards had a different uniform so he was a

welcome. As soon as you arrived, you were made to feel special and

congratulated. You were taking that step and he was there to be your

anchor through that process. A real hub of activity. I could see nervous

people coming into this building and as soon as they met with him, they

were at ease and the entered into that process and were keen to

engage, keen to fulfil their potential. I'm delighted the

government has ruled this out and I went on a visit to the Swindon job

centre a few weeks back. I wasn't sure what to expect. I was greeted

by senior staff. This was the first thing they were most excited to tell

me about. The only have a budget of ?3000. They painted the walls,

change the furniture, change the entrance, provided work stations for

independent work on computers. The staff were so excited. It

transformed morale, it transformed the engagement from the people they

were looking to work with. They were then keen to talk to me about the

different universal credit is making. Simplifying complex benefits

method. 167 benefits and you needed to be a nuclear physicist to work

out what people were or were not entitled to. We would discover our

constituents because of a complex system were missing out on support

it should've been entitled to. Everybody supports the principle of

a simplified single benefit through universal credit that has the

benefit you will always be better off the more you work. Removing the

ridiculous 16 hour cliff edge that stop people progressing from

part-time to full-time work. Crucially, for the first time,

through the real-time technology, allowing people with fluctuating

health conditions to have a minimum income. As a health condition goes

up and down, the system automatically kicks in, rather than

having to constantly reapply, going through confiscated bureaucracy when

you want to deal with health challenges, dealing with remaining

in work and progressing in work. I'm really excited about the simple

things that make the biggest difference. For the first time, we

have a named work coach. This makes a huge difference because as you

arrive there, you're not just looking for work, you have a number

of other challenges you may wish to navigate. It could be getting

childcare, additional training, the diary to help with getting to work.

Giving you significantly more time to concentrate on actually looking

for the work that you would like. But also for the first time ever

this named work coach will stay with you when you enter into work. And

this will make a huge difference. Many others, if we look back in our

own careers, were probably driven mostly by our parents encouraging us

to progress. Encourage owners not to be complacent and to push ourselves.

That isn't given in life. A lot of people, and I saw this again, they

had no interest in going to work. It was a shame because they were

brilliant people and with the right encouragement he could've made a

huge success of themselves. So often you will see people who have been

out of work for a long period of time will enter into work at the

lowest wage. And sometimes those people will then stagnate there and

not have the confidence to kick on to higher levels. An example would

be, I've been out of work for a long period of time and has secured work

at a supermarket. I'm determined to make this success. I turn up every

day and work diligently. I stay there are. Now the named work coach

would ask me how I was doing. For three months, I've worked as hard as

I possibly can. Names work coach might say, have you thought about

asking to become the supervisor? I'm too shy. The named work coach with

top to the managers in the store and ask if they would now be ready.

Therefore, they help you progress within the workplace. It is great we

have 2.7 million people more in work and we have introduced the national

living wage to help the lowest earners get a pay rise. As we move

closer to full structural employment, we need to ensure not

everybody can get a job but fulfil their potential. By working hard,

they can progress. Coming back to the subject of the debate today on

into -- intergenerational fairness, in terms of those who are due a

pension, does he agree that one of the key issues is not only

intergenerational fairness, but fairness between those who run

companies and those who pay into a pension scheme? The news today was

very welcome. I thank him for his intervention. I'm always at a loss

as to why he is not a minister. One of our most able MPs. In the debate

I have attended, he is so thoughtful. I had a brilliant time

as a minister seeing the great work he had done to help promote

Apprentices I head off when it became very fashionable and we

started campaigning. Rightly his intervention highlights those

opportunities. I understand responsibility to staff in terms of

pensions and career progression. As ever, a powerful point. Would you

agree with me that it is so important that we have done

everything we can to remove the badge of shame in the way we have

treated disabled people who want to work? And the disability confident

programme which he was very much involved with at the DWP has grown

from strength to strength, so that more disabled people who should not

be in the shadows are able to fulfil their potential in the employment

market? I thank him and I know he supports that campaign. That's my

final part. The last thing that the staff at the job centre highlighted

was the great initiative of the school advisers, starting to

identify those who needed help at an earlier stage, readying them further

final day in education to have a smooth transition. They were very

excited about the early stages of that. I'm delighted the small

employment offer, a pilot I introduced, is making a real

difference in getting more businesses to engage directly with

job centres to create more potential vacancies. In conclusion, it would

be a miss for me not to discuss the increased opportunities for disabled

people. I was always looking for good ideas when I was the Minister

in charge of this. The most enthusiastic and engage people I

spoke to were young disabled people who wanted to have exactly the same

chances and opportunities as their friends. Highly talented and highly

educated young people. Not all employers had the confidence to

consider offering them an opportunity. Nearly always, an

employer would need to make a relatively small change and they

would benefit. As an employer, I employed someone with a disability

and it need a huge difference. These are real opportunities predominantly

for the younger generation and I welcome this report and urge

everyone to remember it is not them versus us, it is we have a duty to

do our best for all ages and I hope the government will look into the

good work in this area. Order. This afternoon, I suggested members

should limit the time of their speeches because it appeared to me

we had plenty of time given the number of people who indicated they

wished to speak. Such as the interest in the debate now, there

are more people who are indicating they wish to speak than there were

an hour ago. I think they must have been prompted by the last two

excellent speeches. As a result of which, I would now ask members

please to take ten minutes or less. That would be very helpful and would

allow everybody the opportunity to speak before the end of the debate.

Marion Fellows. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It

is a pleasure to follow the gentleman. The report of the work

and pensions committee under the chairmanship of the Right Honourable

member for Birkenhead on intergenerational fairness... I will

try to get that out again. Which we are debating today, raises some very

interesting points. The UK Government has built an autonomy

that offers no long-term security for future generations. The Scottish

National party's vision of economic development is, however, built on

the idea of inclusive growth based on equal opportunities, a fair and

inclusive job market, and safe and secure future for the younger

generation. Madame Jeopardy Speaker, I know you will find it hard to

believe that I am not a millenials. Apparently, I am a baby boomer.

Because it will be more authentic, I will use personal examples, either

what has happened to me or to others of my generation I am familiar with.

According to the report, my fellow pensioners and I are in danger of

breaking the intergenerational contract, which says that my state

pension, which I will always assert is not a benefit but a contract

between myself and successive governments, and those universal

pension benefits I receive, too high a cost for today's working age

populations. I pause here for a moment to consider the women who

have been treated abominably in this and previous governments requiring

many of them to wait far too long for a pension which will come later

than they were told and has caused them serious hardship. I was very

fortunate to be born in the year that I was born in. I paid national

insurance contributions and tell I was 16 and continue to pay tax on my

salary. I contribute to the national exec -- Exchequer. Indeed, over my

lifetime, I believe I have paid in more than I take out. I am very

happy that my fellow pensioners who have not contributed as much as me

are paid what they deserve. Even if they were not able to contribute as

much as I did. And in Scotland, there are many more folk like me. I

welcome one of the conclusions of the report that it is not the fault

of the baby boomers that the economy has become skewed in their favour.

That follows on also from the previous speaker. We shouldn't be

allocating blame. Believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, there have

definitely been times in my life when the economy was not skewed in

my favour. Some people in this chamber will remember September the

16th 1992, and I can't forget that they either. Two years previously, I

had taken out my first mortgage at 7.5% and after numerous increases on

that day, I found myself laughing hysterically on my drive home from

work. I had just found out that the interest rate was now 50% and could

rise even higher. Actually, laughing hysterically is not exactly true. I

stopped worrying about point because I figured out that no one else could

manage to pay their mortgage at that rate, and my house would only be

repossessed and my three children made homeless after the building

society had repossessed all the homes belonging to people with names

beginning capital a - B. The economy was definitely not skewed in my

favour when 1997 sounded the death knell for defined benefit pensions

and for many of my generation and for future generations this has had

a ongoing effect. After this decision, pension schemes became

unable to reclaim the tax credit on dividends. Regular dividends are

hugely important to overall investment returns, so having a

significant chunk taken out of them at a stroke blew a huge hole in the

scheme's finances, and the vast majority of them were frozen and

closed to new entrants. Speaking at the party conference in 2009, George

Osborne said that Mr Brown's disastrous tax rate on pensions

heralded the start of the age of irresponsibility. He also said that

a Conservative Government would reverse the effects of Gordon

Brown's pensions tax rate and get our country saving again. However,

in 2010, Mr Osborne abolished the dividend tax credit altogether. This

made it impossible for him to reverse Mr Brown's tax rate by

making the credit reclaim a bull in future. Thus, we now have the rise

of money purchase schemes which means that pension values are even

more subject to the variations of the stock market. Indeed, Madam

Deputy Speaker, many people of my generation suffered after they are

defined benefit pension schemes were frozen and the money purchase

schemes they were forced into didn't even hold the value of contributions

subsequently paid in. I know of one case where the pensioner and his

employer paid in more than ten years and he received less back when he

retired as the market was at its lowest point on the date of

retirement. All generations will feel the effects of these calculated

moves as they move forward to retirement age. It is important to

be mindful, while addressing working age challenges, that we look at

generation. -- generational gaps. It was the protections offered by the

triple lock to the state pension that helps pensioners be really

protected in their old age. With inflation set to rise further, these

protections must be retained. While addressing the stress of younger

generations. While the triple lock remains in place, we need irony

guarantees that after 2020 it will not be abandoned. Following the

general election -- cast iron certainly. She is making a very

captivating speech. On the triple lock, none of us want to make

changes in this area. Surely there has to be some recognition about

what is affordable for the country's finances. There has to be some

recognition of that, balanced against the security of the pension.

There is recognition but they're actually awesome ideological truths

on the benches opposite that I totally disagree with. We have to

look after pensioners just now and pensioners in the future. Indeed,

Aids UK have told me to refer to the pensions policy Institute which is

deleted that a younger person but lower in earnings as a 62% chance of

achieving an adequate retirement income if the new state pension is

increased by the triple lock, but this could fall to 36% if it is

linked to earnings only. Now, that is for the future, not just for me

and my generation. Other parties should be united with the SNP on

this future protection, notwithstanding the importance of

this report we need to be clear that addressing the challenges for

working age individuals does not mean the prioritising the safeguards

for future pensioners and indeed future generations of pensioners.

The way to tackle intergenerational fairness is through inclusive

policies, ensuring that all generations can live in security in

retirement. Additionally, the DWP committee report also looked at what

are termed universal benefits such as winter fuel payments, which are

not indexed linked and have indeed dropped in value over the years. It

is the committee's opinion that universal benefit should not be

off-limits when spending priorities are set in future parliaments. But

the cost of removing them from better off pensioners could, as some

commentators have said, be more than the benefits themselves. Madam

Deputy Speaker, I have granddaughters, and who knows, one

day perhaps grandson is as well. I want things to be better for them. I

should like a UK Government to look closely at what can be done to

improve matters for them. As I said previously, the UK Government is

built on an economy that offers no long-term security for future

generations. The SNP's vision of economic development is to build on

the idea of inclusive growth based on equal opportunities, a fair and

inclusive job market, and a safe and secure future for the younger

generations. The Scottish Government is building a safe and secure future

for future generations. The Scottish Government believes that a Labour

market which is fair and inclusive and provides sustainable and

well-paid jobs is a key to a more equal society and a more resilient

economy. To achieve intergenerational fairness, we need

to tackle the legacy effects of the economic recession. Such as youth

unemployment and in work poverty. The Scottish Government is ambitious

in its same for reducing youth unemployment and has now implemented

the Would Commission's recommendations. Scotland has been a

strong advocate of collection action at the EU level, supporting

initiatives such as the European youth initiative. Madam Deputy

Speaker, I may run out of time, but I will move on very swiftly and talk

about how home ownership and housing costs, which the Scottish Government

has done a lock to improve. The Scottish Government is home to build

50,000 affordable homes, which will help the younger generation, and

have brought out the new private housing tenancy Scotland Bill, which

is completely creating simpler tenancies, offering stability and

security to the 700,000 tenants who call the private rented sector home.

In fact, it improve security for tenants, it has a comprehensive and

robust repossession grounds and the opportunity for local authorities to

implement rate caps included in it. Madam Deputy Speaker, what we need

for all generations is hope for the future and robust policies that do

not picked one generation against another. My children and

grandchildren do not grudge me what I have erred and paid for. I want

the best for them as well. But I have grave misgivings about their

life chances under this Tory Government. Theresa May has

indicated that the UK could fall down a road of deregulation, a tax

haven style economy. I am sure the honourable lady meant to say the

Prime Minister. I beg your pardon Madam Deputy Speaker. A tax of in

style economy would deny opportunity and security to millenials and

generations to come, and finally to pursue a deregulated tax haven

charter is not only a futile race to the bottom that will impact

businesses and harm the economy, it is clear admission that the UK

Government has not learned from mistakes made in the 2008 financial

crisis and more recently in the Panama papers. John Penrose. Madam

Deputy Speaker, the honourable member in a typically assured and

authoritative speech on this issue began by saying and I think rightly

that intergenerational fairness is a huge issue. He said that the Select

Committee had had of necessity to focus on a particular area. It is a

pretty big and important area to do with the triple lock, but it is a

much broader issue than just that. So intergenerational fairness or

generational justice, if you want to call it that instead, it is not a

brand-new concept. It is not a brand-new idea. But it is absolutely

certainly an idea which is gaining in political salience. It is an idea

whose time is coming, if it has not already come. And part of that is

because of the change in the demographics of this country. Which

again, I think, and lay the Select Committee's decision to look

unbeatable lock. The fact that we have something called a demographic

time bomb ticking away and successive governments of every

stripe have had to deal with the mathematical logic looking forward

into our physical future, which means both on the impact for the

state pension but also for the state benefits and many other facets of

our Government finances. And I would just say that this concept,

therefore, of generational justice provides us with an incredibly

useful new moral prison -- prism through which to view our spending

decisions to date. And my honourable friend from Swindon rightly said

that it is extremely rare for governments since the Second World

War to run a budget surplus. By and large, as a nation, it doesn't

matter who it has been in Government, we have out spent

ourselves. We have overspent. We have been spending today and hoping

that something will turn up tomorrow. And that cannot go on.

Given this notion of general racial Justice, which is increasingly in --

generational justice, which is increasingly in people's minds. We

need to ask yourself if we are spending on things today which just

help our lifestyle, how can be fair our children and on our

grandchildren? Because they are the ones, if we borrowed to support that

spending, they are the ones who are going to have to pay for our

lifestyle today. That cannot be fair at all, and we will have to justify

it to them. When we in turn come to put -- to claim our state benefits.

I am a little bit more generous I think that my friend from North

Swindon because I would say that there are a few occasions when it is

justified to borrow more than we receive in tax benefits, in tax

revenue, particularly if we are borrowing to spend on things which

are then going to be enjoyed by our children and grandchildren and they

are going to be able to use them themselves. We in this country

today, we benefit from the investments which our predecessors

made in railways, inroads. Nowadays, we are investing in our turn in

digital infrastructure, which our future generations, our children and

grandchildren, will be able to use themselves. Those things are things

which last and which will yield benefit not just to us but to future

generations to. The moral prism is that we can then

distinguish between things our grandchildren can use further

benefit as well as ours, compared with things which subsidise our

lifestyle today. And that is the new moral prism. Not something you would

have heard very many people in this chamber or elsewhere in our national

debate talking about five or ten years ago, certainly not 20 years

ago. It is the new concept and it is extremely powerful and important. If

you start to view it through that prism, through the lens, and you

start to apply the same kinds of fiscal discipline and financial

discipline which any dependent pension fund would apply to its

liabilities, if you try to value the financial liabilities which are

inherent, embedded in the state pension and state pension benefits

system, in the same way that for example the pension trustees of the

Rolls-Royce pension scheme or any other private pension scheme do, if

you apply those actuarial calculations, what you find is that

those actuarial liabilities which look and feel and sound and are

economically the same as a government bond, a long-term

liability, they feel the same and I suggest very strongly that it is

only generational leap just that we should treat them the same. If you

do that, the government's balance sheet, the public's balance sheet,

overall commitments start to look very difficult indeed. It is not a

comment on the current government or the last couple of governments,

Coalition or labour. It's a comment on the way this country has been

thinking or behaving since world War, since we founded the welfare

state. If you add those actuarial calculations on to what we normally

call the National debt, the stock of government bonds in issue, you don't

just get a figure projected by about 90% of gross domestic product, a

level which gives people like me and nosebleed from altitude were going

to be operating at in due course, the strain on our government balance

sheet is already high, you don't just get some were knocking on 90%

of GDP, you get a figure of some work between 350-400% of GDP. And I

think it is time that we started being honest with ourselves, not

just honest with ourselves across the aisle here in this chamber, but

honest with ourselves as a society and a nation about the scale of the

check that we are asking our children and grandchildren to cash

on our behalf. It means that the government's finances are a great

deal more brittle and fragile and exposed to external shocks of the

kind we have just suffered in 2008, than we have been willing to admit

to ourselves and we have been a high rolling economy of that kind since

we first invented the welfare state. Now, the select committee chair

rightly pointed out there are a number of different reactions to

this inconvenient truth that we could do. We could raise taxes, we

could ignore the problem, but there are a number of different things he

could do. There was one alternative he didn't mention that I would like

to table for people to consider because the only way that we can

deal with the generational injustice of charging our children and

grandchildren for the liabilities which we are building up under the

state pension and state benefits system is to switch from our current

pay-as-you-go system. And that is a gulping way large financial

commitment. But it is also something which I'm afraid is inescapable once

we have accepted that we have been kidding ourselves about the scale of

the public liabilities which this country has been writing for itself

for the last 50 years or more. And the only way to move from a

pay-as-you-go system to a fully paid-up system, the same system

which will already demand from the occupational schemes which we

already look at and we look at with some degree of envy and some degree

of approval. The occupational schemes which are held up by many to

be the apple of the pensions' i.e.. The only way we can do that is to

take a steady process. It would be unjust to charge the current

generation of taxpayers the cost of supporting the current pay-as-you-go

system where we all pay for the current pensions liabilities, but

also to ask us to build up a fund to afford the future pensions

liabilities in order to wipe out the generational injustice. That will be

an injustice of a different kind and different skill. I would therefore

make this point to all here and to anyone listening more widely. If we

are serious of that generational injustice, if we are serious about

trying to make sure we are not expecting our children and

grandchildren to fund our pensions and benefits, whether we get sick or

are out of work, if we are serious about asking them to fund vital part

of our lifestyle, we need to make a long-term commitment to deal with

their inheritance to. Families do this all the time. We make

commitments on behalf of their children and grandchildren. As a

society, I would argue we need to start being honest with ourselves

about the size of the burden we are placing on future generations and we

have been placing on future generations, and which the

generational time bomb is starting to impose in ever ever heavier

burdens. Therefore, I would argue the only solution to be approached

slowly and carefully over a very very long time skill is to make the

commitment to switch from a pay-as-you-go system to a fully

funded system and to make sure we can look our children and

grandchildren in the eye and say, we did not ask you to pay for our

lifestyle any more. Let's try for nine minutes or less. Thank you.

Could I congratulate the Member for Birkenhead for bringing forward this

important debate on social mobility. We are not the only country dealing

with longevity. That's a very positive thing in my other role as

the Shadow minister for the Far East. China are the most populated

country in the world and have a large ageing population. We are not

the only ones questioning how the best ideas may be brought forward.

Risley on older people first, let's not forget the pension credit is one

of the parts of the benefits system which is actually under claimed. I'm

always surprised when I meet all their fault in my advice surgery,

just how many pensioners there are living in poverty in what is one of

the most well-to-do constituencies on one part and one of the progress

on the other. The people in Wood Green living ten years longer than

constituents in Muswell Hill. In one constituency, ten years can be the

difference between the age of one person passing away and another

living on. Clearly, we see today's headlines saying that people will

work until they are 71 and we know a feature of older age is the scourge

of loneliness. Many people are quite well off, but in the end it is

loneliness which ends up being fatal for them. And it's wonderful that

our former colleague Jo Cox, in her memorial project, is working on

loneliness as a cross-party project. That is a wonderful thing. Today

we're thinking of intergenerational issues. Moving to younger people, we

know there are a number of areas and it dovetails nicely with the debate

we have just had on productivity. On the question of childcare, if we are

able to have more effective childcare, we would have many more

working age payments in the workforce being able to earn and

make those steps within the workplace which the Member for North

Swindon talks about. So many women miss out on career opportunities

because the childcare simply wasn't there when the needed it, which

meant they are not able to get a pay increase which would have enabled

them to have a better pension in the end. And so it goes on. We know that

the former Prime Minister Tony Blair said education, education,

education. He knew that better jobs would bring in better tax receipts.

That is why it is so important that education be central to what we do

in this place. It is a great pity in my view that we are having the first

real terms cut to schools in 30 years. I think state schools have to

be, as the places that educate over 90% of our children, have to be

first and foremost of what we do and I think it is very regressive

indeed. On the question of apprenticeships and further

education, once again, a cut to further education can only lead to a

lowering of educational opportunity within the general population. My

honourable friend, the Member for Tottenham is now calling for

something similar to working men's colleges because of the lack of

opportunity to learn. I'm always delighted when I go to my advice

surgeries in Wood Green library to see how many adults there are

learning English or maths or another subject which would give them that

golden bit of education to get them into a good job. Briefly, regarding

university fees, we now London Metropolitan University puts

educates nurses, I was speaking to a lecturer there the other day who

said the average nurse now comes out with a debt of ?54,000. If you are

nurse and you have a debt of ?54,000, it's quite obvious if you

have a starting salary of 24,000, it is going to take you a long time

indeed to pay that off. That individual will end up being part of

the intergenerational issues we are talking about today. Not only that,

working age families are facing increasing costs of travel to

commute to work. Increasing costs of energy bills and telecoms. With

three children each having a mobile phone, it is much more expensive

than when we just had a landline. But it is not considered a luxury

any more. It is something you need for work. So many working age

families are going backwards. Finally, on the question of the

psychology of universal services, universal goods and services, I want

to very briefly relate an experience I had as a council leader there I

introduced a ?100 backed scheme for older people on the basis they were

older. We wanted to do something for older people and we were looking at

how we could do that. I think it is the most interesting thank you

letters I received as a council leader. Thank you, I am just over

the benefit level, I've worked all my life it feels wonderful to have

that recognition from the council and that bit of ?100 will help me

have a holiday or a day out whatever. We know the Freedom Pass

is a concessionary travel scheme for older Londoners and it is very

cherished. I would like to see many more travel concessions for the

region. The fact you cannot get on a bus in a village and getting to the

local town to go shopping holds back our high streets and the economy

enormously. I think it is something a Labour government would introduce.

The NHS is a popular universal service. If we follow the reasoning

of some of the contributions which members and right honourable members

have made today, one would assume that targeting everything is the

right way to go. We know universalism does work. Finally on

the question of housing, the big divide between the high-value areas

of the country in the lower value areas, it is so difficult for people

when they want to do a job in a high-value area like London or

Oxford or Bristol, and they just find the cost of renting

astronomical. The best investment that actually the state can make,

and we know because every other wealthy investor is making it to, is

in bricks and mortar. The average local authority home costs ?100,000

in capital to build. If you pay that back at a rate of ?150 per week as a

family, you make that up over a 10-year period. Social housing is a

wonderful investment and housing in general is a wonderful investment.

The wonderful thing about housing stock is it is therefore ever to use

and let out again and return that. So, in conclusion,... Mr Speaker,

you have slept in so quietly, excuse me. In conclusion, Mr Speaker, the

question of social mobility, first of all, the point I made initially

was simply to reiterate that pension credit is often under claimed and

not to assume everybody doing very well is over the age of 65.

And also does the pressures that there are working families, be that

through the desperate need for affordable childcare, be that

through the increasing of commuting to work with flat-lining wages and

the other one that I didn't mention, of course, household debt, because

we know that that is creeping up again, something which we need to

watch very carefully. The case for education and the case for housing

to be invested in by governments is the way to goal and I would hope

that we could learn much more from the report from my honourable friend

and not forgetting the complexities of the situation. Thank you, Mr

Speaker. As far as I can see, there are four more backbench would be

contributors and I should have thought that we would need to start

the front bench windups no later than 6:30pm and if the honourable

member from Birkenhead would like to do a wind-up and certainly no later

than them. Stuart Jackson. This has been an excellent debate and very

thoughtful and intelligent contributions from all members and

brilliantly introduced by the Right Honourable gentleman for Birkenhead.

This debate is about poverty. It is about wealth. It is about the

accretion of assets. It is about life chances. My grandmother was one

of 13 children born in County Wexford in Ireland. 11 of those

children died of tuberculosis. Before Kathleen, my grandmother, was

taken to England in the late 40s to live out the rest of her life. And

the reason I mention that as it is impossible not to remember that for

so many of our fellow citizens for so many of hundreds of years, the

reality of their life was brutal, grinding poverty. And I think we

have, an enormous distance. So if I can just say to the honourable

gentleman for Birkenhead, yes, there is much to be done. But we have done

a great deal. To right the wrong of that grinding poverty that afflicted

so many people over so many years. And indeed, really the modern

welfare state was debated after Lord George Broughton the people's budget

which brought on social insurance and pensions and the foundations for

the welfare state. And that, of course, is important to remember.

Some for that reason, I think we ought to recognise that we have gone

in the right direction over the years, and if I can use one other

sadistic, Mr Speaker, it is impossible to believe but as

recently as 1980. -- statistics. 44% of the world lived in absolute

poverty. In 2015, it is 9.6%. So because of technology and science

and innovation and advances in health care, we have done an

enormous amount to less than burden of destitution, misery and poverty

from our fellow man. And I think we should accept that that is

important. I'm going to confine my remarks to this report and the

specific issues raised. It doesn't have to be an acrimonious debate, an

adversarial debate between the so-called millenials and the baby

boomers, because none of us can do anything about the societal change

that is inherent in this debate, which is essentially demographic

change. The number of over 85 is is going to double in the next 25

years. That is a fantastic piece of news because as recently as 30 years

ago, we worked incredibly hard, often in manual work, you reach 70,

you had a few years of attending a plant or your budgie and he fell off

your Birchall. That was the reality of our life. -- off your purchase.

People now richer, healthier, happier and healthier than they have

ever been before and that is a good thing. I think it is also true to

say, though, Mr Speaker, that we haven't always done the right thing

in response to that significant demographic change. And going back

to the point is that my honourable friend for North Swindon made, we

have made some policy mistakes. We had a fetish in the 1980s and 1990s

for university education, academic education. We didn't consider the

importance of technical, vocational education to young people who are

not necessarily gifted on the academic side. We drove this target

of 50% of 18-year-olds going to university. It is great if you are

going to Harvard or Oxford or Cambridge. It isn't great if you're

going to a less prestigious university and end up earning ?7 50

an hour in a call centre and you have got ?40,000 of student debt. We

have two really consider whether we made the right decision. For

instance, we removed polytechnics, which did a great job in terms of

their technical education for young people and turned them all into

universities. Was that the right thing? We are doing our best now to

ameliorate those issues by the creation, for instance, of

University technical colleges and a brilliant apprenticeship programme

across the country. But I'm not sure it is enough. Mr Deputy Speaker,

housing is an important issue that the honourable lady, I think she got

figures the wrong way around, unless that area has gone downhill since I

visited it is, but it is absolutely right to point up the issue that

older people who are in any case better off are hoarding capital

assets and in the planning system in particular, are preventing younger

people from having what they had, and when we are any position where

you have to be 37 years of age now and have something like ?25,000 for

a deposit, that cannot be right in distorting the system. We must build

more homes and we must release more land and we must liberalise the

planning system in order to address the specific issue of housing and

intergenerational fairness. We do have to look at the triple lock. We

need to have a national debate about that and I am indebted to the

resolution foundation and their paper produced a few years ago,

stagnation generation the case for reviewing the intergenerational

contract, and the work of Lord Willetts amongst a number of people.

It is scarcely believable that they could say, quote, millenials are at

the risk of being the first ever generation to record low lifetime

earnings than their predecessors. That is the political inheritance

that we are potentially giving to people who are under 30 at the

moment will stop very briefly, I will give way. I wonder if my

honourable friend would agree with me in terms of the tax relief to

enable younger people to save more. Three quarters of tax relief goes to

higher earners, often older. If we were to lower it, it would mean that

lower income people would have more income available. I absolutely agree

that in terms of fairness and social equity, that is an excellent fiscal

policy which we can look at. We also need to look at the information gap.

We need qualitative data as between what goes in and what goes out

across both generations. We need to publish that analysis and study it

independently. We do need to look at universal benefits such as the

winter fuel allowance. It is inevitable with that demographic

change that we need to make sure that we marshal or public resources

in the best way that we possibly can and we do need to look at a smooth

earnings link and nuance in terms of prices related to indexing of

benefits to pensioners. Because the situation is life expectancy is

increasing and health outcomes are getting better. Not that we haven't

done a good job. Automatic enrolment, changes in tax

allowances, the National Living Wage, record employment of 74.6%.

Apprenticeships, and real incomes are now rising 2.6%, and as my

honourable friend said, use on a planet is reducing you implement in

my own constituency is amongst the biggest falls of any constituency in

England at around 70%. I would say, just in passing, work means well.

Work is the biggest determinant of getting out of poverty in our

country, albeit that it might be low paid and low skilled work at the

beginning, but it is the number-1 determinant of breaking the cycle of

intergenerational welfare dependency. That is hugely

impressive that the Government has taken 865,000 people out of workless

households since 2010. And I think they need obviously to do more. Can

I just finished briefly, and I would like to say a lot more, as you can

imagine, Mr Speaker, because this is a very important issue. What I sense

today, and incidentally can I just be a little bit disobliging to the

Scottish National party before I finish because the honourable lady,

who I think is an excellent representative form honourable, was

rather churlish and her party's own point. If we are talking about

ideology, perhaps you can explain the ?2000 per head in public

expenditure as a result of the Barnett formula? I will leave that

for her to think about. At that is between her constituents. Can I just

finished by saying that my honourable friend made a superb

speech, but the fact of the matter is we have not got a biscuit tin

approach will be just put it in a biscuit tin and take it out when we

are 68 or 70, we do have a pay as you go system. We have got to have a

national consensus and a proper debate on this issue because we

cannot kick it into the long grass any longer. But I would say that, as

I said at the beginning of my speech, grinding poverty,

destitution, ill health, mental illness, all things that we never

want to go back to, and the system that we have is the price we paid

for a civilised society. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to avoid seeing

this as an issue of John versus old and I am conscious that there is a

huge variation in the incomes of pensioner households, with some

relatively affluent and others struggling to get by. I also

recognise the dangers of too much means testing among elderly people

and particularly the risk that it can lead to people going without.

Despite genuine need. And entitlement. But I am also aware

that this is not a great time to be young. Average household income,

which has been rising for every successive generation since 1910,

has stopped rising for those born in the 1980s. They are the first

generation to start their working lives on in income law than that of

the previous generation. This younger generation will also do less

well with pensions, both through lack of access to defined benefit

schemes and the age at which they will be entitled to a state pension.

It is true, as we have heard, that auto enrolment will help, but it is

hardly generous and it will require a steady rise in employee

contributions over the coming years. Personally, I would like to see the

Government take a good look at pension tax relief, and I think in

response to the honourable gentleman for Weston-Super-Mare, I would like

to see what can be done to incentivise those on lower incomes

and that the early stages of their working life to save for a pension

pot. I think that would be a better use of public money than generous

relief for those who have already built up a healthy pot and in some

cases quite a substantial pension pot. We need to think about how hard

it is for young people to get on the property ladder and the proportion

of their already limited income that so many are forced to pay in rent

and other housing costs. The IFS reports that young people spend a

large proportion of their income on housing payments. I was struck by a

proposal in a report of a recent British Academy IFS round table on

intergenerational fairness which suggested one answer to the double

dilemma of accommodation costs for the young and the social care crisis

is to suggest encouraging a model of cohabiting with older people. This

might provide benefits of increased companionship, new understandings

between generations, at a time when the idea of the extended family is

-- has all but ceased to be a feature of our society but so many

people feel -- feel isolated. There could be a

positive impact on well-being. It could help those who are property

rich but cash your. Costs could be set at a fair and realistic level.

Bedmate offer something to those whose accommodation costs mean we

have no prospect of saving to get on the property ladder. I want to

support the chairman of the works and pensions select committee and

other members of the select committee in calling for the

government to come clean about its future plans for the triple lock,

which I honestly don't think is sustainable. I don't want to see an

election campaign fought on our faults bidding war for pensioners,

only to be followed by a harsh U-turn after words, as we have

already seen on something like tuition fees or expectations around

social care. I'm aware that many pensioner groups will oppose what I

have to say and I have already had a hard time from the West Midlands

pensioners Convention for being a member of a committee that could

dared to look at this issue. I'm also aware that a commitment to

maintain the triple lock for the Hall of the next Parliament, as I

understand it, is the current position of the Labour front bench.

I ask my honourable friends to look at this again, to see if there is a

better way to protect pensioners and hold the government to account on

the rather vague plans that are currently being advanced. There are

two problems with the triple lock. It has a ratchet effect which means

it demands an ever greater share of GDP at a time when we have seen no

income growth in working age households for the last ten years.

And of course the triple lock creates a trade-off that means that

state pension age will have to rise above 70, which means in many cases

pushing it above average life expectancy in some of the cooler

parts of the country. In some parts of Birmingham, average male life

expectancy is already 70.4 years. Healthy life expectancy is as low as

33 years. In many parts of the country, average life expectancy and

healthy life expectancy is even worse. We've already seen the

problem of a rising pension age for the Waspy women, a group that should

get transitional help. I wonder what the risks will be if we pursued a

policy of an ever rising pension age. I think a better solution would

be to link the state pension age to earnings. I ask my front bench to

think about this and perhaps a politically acceptable sweetener for

such a change might be to consider placing the hugely expensive 2.5%

component of the triple lock with a pledge to set a different cap on

care costs and more support for social care? We have to accept that

work was pensioner incomes, those who have fully retired, have grown

more slowly than those of any other group since 2001. Today's young

workers are set to be net contributors to the welfare state

over the course of their lives. The baby boomer generation will be net

beneficiaries. I want honesty for the future, fairness for current and

future pensioners, and sustainable and affordable plans for the

challenges that lie ahead. Thank you. It is a pleasure to follow the

member of the select committee that we are both on. I echo a key

argument which is I think we need to reform the triple lock and other

pension benefits and use the savings for adult social care and the NHS.

The keyword he mentioned was honesty. I think we need to level

with the British people about the financial situation we are in. The

way to look at that is to say, if we had a blank canvas today, what would

we keep that we had no? Nobody starting a pension system today

would come up with the triple lock. Nobody would suggest a winter fuel

allowance for everyone, regardless of income. No-one would suggest a

free bus pass. No-one would suggest a ?10 Christmas bonus which Ted

Heath introduced in 1972, which cost ?124 million at Christmas time when

the NHS is in crisis. And arbitrary political timetable of the year 2020

is unhelpful. We need to find the money in a fairway. To me, the

proposition we are about to put more money into adult social care and the

NHS, and none of it will come from existing pensioners, would be

extraordinary. We have to look at pension benefits and the triple

lock. My personal view is this. I think when it comes to the triple

lock we have to remember that by 2050 the number of pensioners, the

number of people over 65, will be 19 million, almost twice as many as the

10 million today. And look at the pressures the current system is

under. If you keep the triple lock, it will cost an extra ?15 billion.

We should recognise the most vulnerable pensioners, those who

need help from the state the most, are those in the care system, those

who are in the NHS needing care. Personally, we should look hard at

the winter fuel allowance. Invest in remediation measures. Move people

want to better energy tariffs. Then wind it down and spend the money on

the care system. That's where pensioners need it, particularly in

the winter. Look at the free bus pass. Put a nominal charge on that

and allow pensioners to travel at peak time. It costs the Exchequer

?1.2 billion a year. Free prescriptions. We see that in

England we pay for our prescriptions, but 90% of

prescriptions in England are not paid for because so many of them go

to the over 60s. The cost of free prescriptions for the over 60s in

England is ?4.8 billion. I recently went to a constituency meeting. Most

of them were well. They received free prescriptions when there are

many people of working age who have to pay for them. If you are open and

honest, as I am prepared to be he is slaughtering sacred cows in such a

steady fashion and I would suggest the free TV licence to be added to

his list. They were political measures that beer now relation to

the income of the recipient. The sort of politics we simply cannot

afford today. We should be prepared to use the savings to support a fair

deal for those who have assets and need the care system. And also to

support those who cannot support themselves in the care system. If

you do raise this money and support the care system, it offers another

aspect of generational fearless. The care sector is desperately short of

staff. Too many are badly paid. Raise the money going into it and we

have an area that will not be hit by the robot replacement phenomenon,

there is a strong aspect of intergenerational fairness if you

increase pay. To finish on a key point made by the Member for

Weston-Super-Mare, an excellent speech, we should move to a funded

system. Why should you take the stuff away from me, constituents

will ask. I have paid into this my quite right. Pensioners are worried

that they get such low interest on their savings. Council tax goes up

and they are affected. Many are struggling. The core root of the

problems we a pay-as-you-go system. Fast elements of freebies.

Prescriptions. It is the contrast between the government who should be

doing the right thing, even though it is not popular, and those in the

past to have given out vast freebies at the expense of each generation.

That is the model we should move towards. The public now past

decisions have to be made and we should not shy from them. If we want

intergenerational fairness, we will need to have some intergenerational

honesty. It is a great pleasure to join this debate at such a late

stage. The debate has been in a sense introduced by the very good

news on the NHS pensioners. For those of us on the joint select

committee, many of us will share the enthusiasm for the results that have

come out of that. Coming to the debate today on intergenerational

fairness, let me start by putting the case for the prosecution. Which

was laid out in more detail in the select committee enquiry into which

I and others were part of. They said the economy today in the UK is

skewed. We focus on three or four key elements. House prices, life

expectancy, burden of looking after the old financed by the young, the

triple lock on the pensions, and the implicit social contract between

generations that we felt had become skewed and that triggered in the

sense two or three specific recommendations, particularly on the

new state pension tracking earnings and doing away with the triple lock.

The factual evidence behind a case for the prosecution highlighted in

the figure that the value of the full state pension as an average, as

a percentage of the average earnings, is now the highest it has

been since the late 1980s. However, there is of course more to it than

that. Some of the points I'd like to highlight today include the fact

that actually the percentage of spending on pensioners as a

percentage of GDP is following. That's partly due to growing

economy, partly due to increases in the state pension age, partly due to

the triple lock only applying to the basic state pension and new

pensions. Therefore, the statistics are not always helpful in terms of

anticipating the future. The other point is that there is a strong

feeling amongst some of us that actually the basic state pension did

need to increase quite sharply, particularly between 2010 and 2020

because it had fallen sharply behind in the previous decade. It is not

quite as simple proposition as it first appeared. Secondly, amongst

our pensioners today are those who served this country in extremely

difficult times, including world wars and other conflicts. Many of

them are brought up in very difficult circumstances in a world

far removed from the conditions that most people today can imagine. Then

there is the business of the young. The young have always faced

challenges, the challenge has just changed over time. 100 years ago,

people of 18 leaving school were going into different challenges,

many of them on the Western front. My own grandparents as young people

met shortly after the carnage on the battle of the Somme where my

grandfather had been injured and the woman who became his wife was

nursing him. The challenges of today, while considerable, we

shouldn't underestimate what they were in the past as well. On

housing, I think that one of the ironies of our leaving the European

Union at this stage may be just at the moment we do so, we are

beginning to adopt a more European approach to the homes we live in and

renting them from a longer than we previously dead, as they do on the

continent. So, and this has been recognised by the current government

in a sense by wanting to create more social housing that would be

available for rent, then there are other points which have been well

raised by my honourable friend, the Member for Swindon, which spoke

about the National Citizen service which I think has cost ?1.2 billion

so far, not on any balance sheet of course. Apprenticeships, youth

unemployment is at the lowest for 12 years. The openings and

opportunities in universities and further education colleges. And

therefore one of the things I hope that the former right honourable

member in his current role as chairman of the resolution

committee, I hope that he doesn't try and set pensioners against

working age against the young. For that could be extremely

counter-productive. There are, of course, things that

could be done to improve the balance, the relationship. Some were

mentioned by the honourable member for Weston-Super-Mare and of course

we could look at a double, not a triple lock. But nonetheless, I want

to finish, Mr Speaker, because I can see that you are agitating, by

trying to highlight the fact that we should never forget that in our

efforts to make sure that the costs of old age don't cripple the future

generations paying for them, we shouldn't also forget the hugely

positive role played by so many grandparents and great grandparents

in looking after children, sharing their love and wisdom through many

families, especially where the parent's on relationships are broken

down and the children are often being guided by their grandparents.

In many ways, all the people are always helping out in passing, so

don't let's forget this and in the analysis that the resolution

foundation wants to do the balance of fiscal contributions from

withdrawals, which I think it is right that it is done by the

foundation are not by the Government, let us not forget that

they are incredibly sensitive issues, some of which emerged as a

moral issue during the Assisted Dying Bill, where we do not want to

end up inadvertently sending generations interests against one

another, for at the end of the day, letters be mindful of what many

others in this house believes and the late Jo Cox articulated

brilliantly that what we all have in common is so much more than what

divides us and that includes by generations. Kirsty Blackman. Thank

you very much, Mr Speaker. You may know, certainly some people have

heard me talking before about my issues with the estimates process

and the fact that I do not agree that we should do the estimates in

its wake and I think the Government should seriously consider the

reforms put forward by the procedure committee in the way that we do the

estimates because we should be allowed to discuss them at length

and to scrutinise them. That hadn't been said. I want to talk

specifically about the intergenerational fairness report.

That has been brought before us. I think it works quite nicely that

myself and my colleague from Motherwell and Wishaw were here as

the SNP team to talk about this. So I just want to briefly touched on my

story, if you like. And then talk about some of the issues that people

my age face. So my grandparents were part of the silent generation, my

parents were at the very tail end of the baby boomers. I am a millenial.

My children are a generation that is sometimes called or Generation Z. In

people that I have spoken to, my grandparents, they have spoken to me

about the hardship that they faced. In my family history, we have faced

all of the issues that are discussed in this report. The issues that

people my age face are different to issues that have been faced in

certainly relatively recent generations. There are issues with

precarious jobs and the gig economy and I don't think that has been

talked about a huge amount here today but I think it is really

important thing to note that there is not the security of jobs that may

be some people had in previous generations. You cannot expect to

walk into a job and still be in that are 20 or 30 years' time. You walk

into that job as a young person and you wonder if you will still be

there in six months' time because of the precarious nature of the

contracts that there these days. One of the things that is also not been

discussed is the fact that people my age are delaying having children,

which actually stores up even more problems for the future in terms of

the demographic issues that we have. What we should have been doing is 20

years ago, wishing -- we should have been having more children. Now the

problem is exacerbated even more. Because people are pushing having

children into later in adult it than they would have before. And that is

causing an issue because we will not have the working age population to

support us. I am not going to be able to retire for another 38 years.

That is when I will head state pension age. By that time, I will

have been working for... I can't even work out... 49 years, I think,

full-time, by the time I hit full state pension age. Other people my

age are in the same situation. I want to touch on housing costs. In

1990, which is around the time that my parents were buying houses, the

average housing cost in Scotland was 2.4 times the average income. In

2010, it has increased. Then it was 3.7 times. So buying a house for