Real Progress:
The Green Party’s Pledge to Pensioners
Press
office briefing
Based
on a speech by Professor John Whitelegg, Leader of North West Green Party, to
the North West Pensioners’ Association, 19 March 2004
Contact
Spencer Fitz-Gibbon, 020 7561 0282
The problem for pensioners
Here’s the problem as the
Green Party sees it:
Currently two-thirds of Britain’s 11 million pensioners live in poverty.
To get a pension you still have to be subjected to means testing. In fact, the new Pensions Credit will involve the biggest extension of means testing since World War 2. It will bring half our pensioners into means testing.
Pensions Credit is even more complicated than the old system. The complication and the means testing are so off-putting that the government is planning that only 73% of pensioners will claim the benefits they’re entitled to.
Modern society is supposed to be about progress – but we don’t see much progress in the treatment of pensioners. In fact we’ve gone backwards. We used to see the state pension as a civic right. Now it seems we see it almost as a charitable handout. That’s not progress.
The Green Party believes in
progress – real progress. In fact Real
Progress is our new slogan. So here is the Green Party’s commitment to
pensioners – this is what we stand for – this is our pledge of Real Progress for Pensioners.
The Green Party pledge to pensioners
The link between the level of
the state pension and general income was broken by the Tories in 1980. Since
returning to power, Labour has done nothing to restore it. This means
pensioners are £30 a week worse off than they would have been. That’s not
progress.
Green Party pledge: We would restore the link
between pensions and general income. As incomes rise, tax revenue rises, so
pensions should rise. That would be Real
Progress.
Pension provision is currently
quite patchy. Women retire at 60 and men are expected to keep working to 65.
Some people, especially women, get less because they've earned less and have
paid less National Insurance. The government has improved this situation
recently, but they should go further and create equality.
Green Party pledge: Everyone should be eligible
for state pension at age 60 – unconditionally, without means testing, and with
no penalty for those who have paid less National Insurance. That’s Real Progress.
The basic state pension is
currently so low that a Minimum Income Guarantee is needed to bring it up to a
decent level. Why so much bureaucracy? Why not just have a decent level of
state pension?
Currently the government gives
tax relief on private pension plans. It costs the treasury more than £13
billion a year. But the poorest people don’t have private pension plans and
don’t get that tax relief. Why should we be giving more tax relief to people
already wealthy enough to have a big private pension? That’s a bit like taxing higher incomes less than we tax lower incomes. Is that progress?
Green Party pledge: We would stop the tax relief
on private pension plans and plough that £13 billion a year into the basic
state pension – to make sure the money goes where it’s most needed. That’s Real Progress.
Means testing is extremely
unpopular. Filling in endless forms is a bureaucratic nightmare and a lot of
people find it intimidating or humiliating. Means testing is not progress.
Green Party pledge: We would end pensioners’ means testing once and for all. The state pension must be seen as a civic right due to all members of society. That would be Real Progress.
Fairer council tax for pensioners
Many pensioners pay large
amounts of council tax. Often this is because their house has increased in
value, while the pensioner has remained on low income. Many pensioners then
face the choice of either buying less food and switching the fire off to be
able to afford their council tax, or being forced to sell their home. Forcing people out of their home or forcing
them to go cold or hungry is not progress.
Green Party pledge: We would urge every local
authority to peg pensioners’ council tax to the rate of inflation - not to
increase it as their house increases in value. That’s fair. That’s Real Progress.
Due to means testing and the
complexity of the system, millions of pensioners don’t claim the full benefits
they’re entitled to.
Green Party pledge: We want very local authority to set up a Pensioners’ Rights Unit to work with pensioners and pensioners groups, with Citizens Advice Bureaux and government agencies, to aim for as close to 100% take-up of pensioners’ benefits as we can get.
Abolishing fuel poverty and saving energy
Many pensioners live in homes
that need too much energy to keep them warm. Recently parliament considered a
Home Energy Conservation Bill that would have cut our energy demands by 30%
within 10 years. The Bill would have ended fuel poverty once and for all. It
was such a good idea that 400 MPs of all parties supported it. But the
government squashed it. So Britain has made very little progress on energy
conservation.
Green Party pledge: We would pass a Home Energy Conservation Act to achieve 30% energy savings within 10 years. We would prioritise pensioners and low income households. This would abolish fuel poverty, cut pollution, help tackle climate change and create local jobs. Real Progress.
The government is proposing to
give pensioners a £30,000 lump sum at age 70 if they stay in work. Of course
the Green Party supports pensioners’ right to carry on working if they want to.
But this latest plan is a fraud:
a. Under
this scheme, all the time you’re still working you’re not drawing your pension
but you are paying tax.
b. For
pensioners it means gambling on your longevity. For the government it’s a
certain money-spinner – and not just because a proportion of pensioners will
die before they get their lump sum.
c. If all
pensioners put off retiring to claim that lump sum, and didn’t claim their
pension for those five years but did carry on paying tax, the government would
be £11 billion better off. Pensioners as a group would have gone without £11
billion. This scheme means cheating Britain’s senior citizens out of up to £11
billion. That’s not progress.
Green Party pledge: We would safeguard the right
of pensioners to work beyond age 65 if they choose to – without denying them
their pension. That would be Real
Progress.
Improving the National Health Service
Pensioners are amongst those
who feel the shortcomings of the National Health Service mostly keenly. Clearly
we need to cut hospital waiting lists. Successive governments spend more on
health without making much headway in improving the NHS. How can we make
progress?
Part of the problem is that
the NHS spends one-fifth of its budget dealing with illness that needn’t have
arisen in the first place. Poverty
causes a lot of illness; so Green Party policies of wealth redistribution would
reduce NHS spending. Stress causes a lot of illness – often
thanks to overwork or prolonged unemployment. Green Party policies of improving
our work-life balance would reduce NHS spending. Pollution causes a lot of illness. In fact government figures show
that between 12,000 and 24,000 people in the UK are killed every year by air
pollution, and thousands more are hospitalised. Again, Green Party policies of
reducing pollution would cut NHS spending.
Green Party pledge: Green
policies could cut current NHS costs by up to 20% - leaving more money to spend
on improving the health service. That
would allow Real Progress.
Improving pensioners’ mobility
Many pensioners rely for their
mobility on public transport. Public transport in Britain has deteriorated
thanks partly to privatisation and deregulation and partly to chronic
under-funding by successive Labour and Tory governments.
Green Party pledge: We would scrap the £30 billion plan to build more roads and put that £30 billion into better and cheaper public transport, traffic calming, better transport provision for disabled people and pedestrians, and other Green transport initiatives.
We would re-regulate the buses to make them more
reliable. We would improve journey times through widespread bus priority
measures. We would ensure that bus companies can’t just shut down important bus
services on the grounds that those routes are less profitable than the more
popular routes.
And we would introduce a free regional travel
scheme for all pensioners. Every pensioner should have a pass that entitles
them to travel free on all local services and from their home to the nearest
major town or city. We want all pensioners in Britain to have that travel pass. That would be Real Progress.
Age discrimination is a huge problem. Lots of pensioners feel that
politicians don’t listen to them. To help solve that problem we need to raise
the profile of pensioners and pensioners’ concerns within government.
Green Party pledge: We want a Minister for Older People to make sure pensioners’ concerns are directly addressed and represented at the highest level.
Unfortunately the Green Party
is unlikely to sweep into power at the next general election. But we always say
to voters, it’s best to vote for what you want.
In this year’s European
elections we will undoubtedly elect Green MEPs. There are dozens of Greens in
the European Parliament including some from Britain and this year we’re
confident that the North West will elect at least one Green MEP.
We also have Green Party
councillors in the North West. Lancaster has Britain’s biggest local council
Green Party group, and last year we replaced the Tories as the third party on
Manchester city council. We will get more Green councillors elected in the
North West this year.
And when our vote goes up, the
other parties start looking over their shoulder. So every Green vote tells the
other parties that these are the
policies you want and puts pressure on them to follow our lead.
So our message to pensioners
and to the whole electorate this year is this: if you want progress, Real
Progress, vote Green.