Labour Against Pensioners
Since early 1970s
Slideshow Examples of Labour against pensioners,
especially women and specifically against 1950s to 1980s born ladies
Equality of Pension Age 60 for Men Denied by Labour
..."When planning the first Sex Discrimination Act (1975) in the early 1970s, it is believed that Barbara Castle (Labour government Minister) had wished to include an
equal state pension age of 60 (for men same as women) in its remit, but later dropped this idea when
(Labour) Prime Minister Jim Callaghan responded with ‘do you want me to bankrupt the country?’ Nor did it feature in the subsequent
1984 Sex Discrimination Act."...
Right wing Labour had won power over the party again by then.
(Source PARITY formerly CESPA men's equality group)
We know that subsequent governments would not have risen men's pension age, as done against women.
The history of the top waged, mostly men, paying from 2003 only 1 per cent, then 2 per cent from 2011 onwards, on top wages (above maximum salary threshold) for worker National Insurance contributions, is another discrimination done by Labour in their governments. It meant if the rich had paid full worker National Insurance contributions on ALL their wages, then better state pension money and pension age 60 could easily have been afforded.
CONTRACTED IN NATIONAL INSURANCE RATES
The description by Labour MP Gerald Kaufman (b.1930) of Labour's 1983 election manifesto as the longest suicide note in history, shows Labour again enemies of the state pension.
1983 Labour manifesto included pension policies of :
- common pension age of 60.
- Give women the additional tax allowance for the elderly - the age allowance - at 60 instead of 65.
- Phase out the TV licence for pensioners.
- Link pensions and average earnings, when these are rising faster than prices.
Link to manifesto CLICK HERE
Pensioners Got Poorer Under Blair and Brown's Labour government
History of Labour against especially women pensioners
under Blair and Brown's government 1997 to 2010
- It was Labour who betrayed the 1950s to 1980s born women by not getting rid of the Tory 1995 pension act that rose women's pension age from 60 to 65 and Labour added pension age 66 with Labour's 2007 pension act.
- It was Labour who further betrayed the 1960s to 1980s born women by raising pension age to 67 and 68 (2007 pension act).
- It was Labour who ended Widows Pensions before age 60.
- It was Labour who rose early works pension age
from 50 to 55
(2004 Finance Act, law in 2010).
- It was Labour who continued stopping the prior version of triple lock on the lowest state pension of any rich nation on earth.
Prior version of triple lock had begun to be stopped by Thatcher in 1980.
Labour raising state pension, for example, only by 75p per week in 1999. - It was Labour that did not uncouple Pension Credit from women's pension age and keep it at 60, for men and women, and all the other pensioner benefits at 60, knowing the harm that would do to the poorest men and women when state pension age rose.
- Labour also knew pension age rise would kill, as their own government actuaries told them back in 2005.
Labour government from 2024
REEVES SAID IN PARLIAMENT IN 2014 means testing Winter Fuel Payment when Labour next back in government.
So both Starmer and Reeves have lied now that stopping Winter Fuel Payment for all pensioners was a new decision. She is calling us pensioners, rich.
Ten years ago, Reeves wrote, with all the compassion of a spreadsheet: “We will vote for a cap on welfare spending to keep the overall costs of social security under control.” How chilling those words seem now, as millions of pensioners face the prospect of shivering through winter, their radiators as cold as Labour’s heart.
But let us not forget Reeves’ crowning achievement in doublespeak: “We’re not the party to represent those who are out of work,” she proudly declared in 2015. One wonders if she now considers pensioners, those who have toiled for decades and earned their rest, as part of this undesirable demographic.
Labour does not want to represent people out of work
‘Labour are a party of working people, formed for and by working people’
Rachel Reeves, Labour MP
Rachel Reeves planned an assault on
Winter Fuel Payment a decade ago.
Hansard debate on Tuesday 25 March 2014
We are the party who have said that we will cut the winter fuel allowance for the richest pensioners and means-test that benefit to save money,
but Government Members do not support that. The reality is that we are the party who are willing to take tough decisions to get the welfare bill down, whereas it is rising, not falling, under this Government.