THE PENSIONS DEBATE
SIR,—I want to take issue with Taper's comments on the Pensions debate. First, he expressed the view that it was 'vieux jete to hope. that 'an election-year debate on pensions in the House of Commons would or might be directed towards eliciting what sort of pension scheme would or might be best for the country.' Then he proceeded to give the impression that everyone who took part in the debate, with the exception of the Minister of Labour, was indulging in pre-election knockabout, and that none of us cared a fig what happens to the pensioner—or to the nation's economy.
I might not have been stirred to write to you if Taper had not apostrophised me directly. 'Can Mr: Grossman,' he exclaimed at one point, 'lay his hand on his heart and swear that the Government's Bill really is "utterly intolerable," "beastly," "miserable," "a swindle"?' And the implication clearly was that Mr. Crossman could not take that oath without committing quadruple perjury. This brought me up with a jerk and made me realise that the MPs wrangling across the floor and Taper, cool and de- tached, in the gallery's stratosphere arc indeed living in two different worlds. Of course I am prepared to lay' my hand on my heart and swear that the Govern- ment's Bill is a swindle—and so arc Mr. Marquand, Mr. Houghton, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Cronin and the other Socialist MPs who presented, in the course of the debate, what I thought an unanswerable proof of the assertion.
Let me try to get Taper to understand why we were really angry. Some of us have been devoting a large part of our time and energy for more than three years to working out Labour's plan for National .Superannuation. Though it may disillusion Taper that we should be so old-fashioned about things, we do believe that, when we introduCe our scheme, it will begin to abolish the poverty in old age which is the standing disgrace of the post-war Welfare State. When I say this or write this, Taper groans about 'Socialist claptrap.' All I can tell him is that we believe it to be the truth, and that is why we are furious when the Government puts forward a so- called 'graded pension plan' that seems to us nothing but a device for helping the wealthy taxpayer at the cost of the medium-wage earner.
But I do not want to claim that all the sincerity is on one side. The Tory speakers really believe that our Labour plan will be inflationary and utterly disastrous and that is why they can support the Boyd-Carpenter scheme as 'realistic' and 'timely.' In the debate, these two conflicting points of view were put forward, as I thought, sharply and pun- gently. But the trouble is that it was impossible to judge the quality of the speeches unless one had studied the two rival schemes. I do not get the im- pression that Taper did so before announcing to your readers that we were having a jolly party row and that none of us really cared about the merits of the issue.
Because I believe that Taper is a satirist with some positive belief in Parliamentary freedom, I make him this challenge. Let him spend two days-1 think this is the minimum time—studying pensions and super- annuation. After that, let him spend a few hours watching the Committee Stage of the Bill, which starts next Thursday, and then cover some at least of the Report Stage and Third Reading on the floor of the House. This would give him a chance of 'describing to your readers how a complex and vastly important Bill of this kind is dealt with and also of estimating the real quality of the combatants on both sides. I shall be very much surprised if, after this, Taper can still lay his hand on his heart and swear that the debates he has been listening to were party claptrap, which did not deal with the real issue of pensions.—Yours faithfully,
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