Sodalities...
The ether day Patrick Jenkin gave some figures for those qualifying for marginal age exemption relief from taxation — mainly pensioners who retired between 1967 and 1970. In the tax year 1967-68 there were 120,000 single persons and 180,000 married couples paying a total of E7i million in tax. Two years later the numbers had risen to 150.000 and 210,000 respectively.
Mr Jenkin's questioner was the now redoubtable Michael Meacher. Since coming into the House at the last general election. Meacher has done a great deal of writing and talking about social problems and especially about poverty. He has made himself particularly the master of the question for written answer — that grey area at the back of Hansard. The technique is to table abstruse and erudite questions, and allow abstruse and erudite answers to build up until you have enough ammunition to fire a large charge at a minister. Meacher, however, despite his industry in so many directions, is not yet as accomplished a debater as he might be, and therefore misses opportunities in the floor of the House itself.
It is interesting to note that, under the proposals in the Government's pensions White Paper, it is estimated that about a half of the employees will pay less than they do at present in national insurance contributions.
I was interested in Denis Howell's attempt, on February 18, to start the process of getting an early retirement Act on the statute book, if only in order to relieve unemployment. Hugh Gaitskell once tried a similar scheme, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, which involved altering the retirement age of women: the idea was to bring women and men into more logical alignment in these matters. The Tories jumped on him, and ever since both parties have stuck rigidly to the sacred cows of social and health security, fearing to be over-attacked, or pre-empted, by the other party. When people complain about the excessive agreement between the two parties on various matters, I sometimes feel tempted to complain that their agreement is insufficient. CUStOS
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