Fair deal for pensioners: We know we have to do more.. and we will

LAST week the Sunday Mirror highlighted the plight of pensioners struggling every week to make ends meet.

And you demanded that this Government - your Government - do more to help them.

So let me make this pledge to you today loud and clear. We know we have to do more - and I promise we will.

We will spend more on pensioners. Much more. And we will spend it more fairly. Doing more to help the poorest pensioners but also helping those on low and middle incomes. So that all pensioners share in the nation's rising prosperity.

It means more for millions of pensioners who miss out on extra help because they have a small second income from savings or an additional pension - and who under successive governments have been penalised rather than rewarded for their hard-earned savings.

Pensioners who lose out exactly because they have scrimped or saved to put a little aside for their retirement but could never be described as comfortably off. That's wrong. And we are going to put it right. I can promise they will get more cash each year than an inflation rise to the basic state pension would provide.

It's extra money needed to tackle pensioner poverty, reward savings and reduce the gap between rich and poor. Because that's the real problem we face in this country.

Yes, there are far too many pensioners having difficulty surviving each week and the Sunday Mirror was right to highlight their plight last week.

But there are also many pensioners - thanks largely to occupational and private pensions - who now retire on incomes which many Sunday Mirror readers will never earn in their working lives. Pension incomes have increased faster than any group over the last 20 years. One in six couples now retire on more than pounds 400 a week.

So it doesn't make sense to me, as we plan for the long-term future of the country and tackle pensioner poverty, to give the wealthiest pensioners the same help we give the poorest.

A flat rate increase, which is what linking the basic state pension to wages would do, will give more help to those who don't need it, while preventing us from giving more to those who do.

It's why we introduced the Minimum Income Guarantee to target help to the poorest pensioners and why I want to see that increased as soon as possible to pounds 90 a week.

It's why, as I've already said, I am determined to do more to help those whose small pensions or savings now deny them the extra help they need.

We introduced the winter allowance paid to pensioner households and increased it to pounds 150 this year. That's worth pounds 3 a week and is collected in cash just before Christmas.

We have abolished Tory eye test charges, cut VAT on fuel, brought in free TV licences for over 75s from October and concessionary bus travel for every pensioner in the country. In all, it means that some of our poorest pensioner households are up to pounds 20 a week better off.

I know some people will passionately disagree, as they did at our conference last week. But I'm convinced that continuing to target most help on those who really need it must be right.

But what you want to see, above all, is action - money put in the pocket and purses of the pensioners who need it - rather than just words. I promise we will deliver it. I promise we will honour the debt we owe to the people who built this country.

Copyright 2000 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.