Occupational Pensioners (Housing Benefit)

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 5:03 pm on 19 January 1984.

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Photo of Mr Brynmor John Mr Brynmor John , Pontypridd 5:03, 19 January 1984

I hope to follow the Secretary of State as little as possible, mainly because he studiously avoided talking about the housing benefit scheme until he reached the last part of his remarks. He rightly said that the social security programme cannot hope to be exempt from change. We agree. But the housing benefit scheme was a change in the social security programme brought about not two years ago. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman cannot get away with the idea that it has been stultified for years.

He has said that people were in favour of a unified system and once again he quoted Donnison. He is seriously misleading the House because Professor Donnison has made it clear time and again that he did not favour a unified benefit unless it had an injection of further money. What we see in the scheme is a no cost shambles which Professor Donnison disapproves of and which we all disapprove of. No one disapproves of the concept. The trouble is that the right hon. Gentleman has besmirched the concept by the pinch-penny way in which he has introduced it.

The right hon. Gentleman has talked about capital. Let me bring him back to the point. We are talking not about people who have the opportunity of great capital accretions but about those who are eligible for housing benefit. They are amongst the least well off in the country. The Minister has said that some pensioners will not lose anything but he cannot point to anyone who will gain from the proposed change in the regulations. Either they will stay where they are or, in over 3 million households, they will lose money. It is because of the losses under the scheme that the debate is so important.

The motion refers to 1·3 million pensioner households which will lose an average of 80p per week. I apologise for repeating what is in the motion, but it is necessary to do so because the Secretary of State certainly did not refer either to the motion or to the scheme. He talked about a scheme which will take away from those who have a little income in addition to their basic pension 80p per week in housing benefit.

I understand that the Minister is a Lancastrian; his accent sometimes betrays that. I thought that thrift was something of which Lancastrians approved. If the Government clobber occupational pensioners in this way, they will create a pensions trap. If a person pays into a firm's pension scheme to earn a little more pension, he will be hit because he will be ineligible for housing benefit. So much for the party that approves of thrift and saving.