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Finance Bill

I shall be brief. As an old lag who has attended many debates on pensions over a long period—and perhaps I should state that I have a personal financial interest in the basic pension, which I have been receiving for some seven years now—I can recall a pensions crisis. I recall the 17 years under the Tory Government when the level of the basic pension was cut following their severing of the link with earnings in 1980. A few years later, they cut in half the value of the state earnings-related pension scheme. The introduction of SERPS under Barbara Castle in 1975 was one of the most progressive moves ever made, and it was supported by all parties in the House. The Tory Government also promoted the personal pension scam that robbed 6 million people, who received derisory pensions compared with the amount of money put into them. It was left up to the Labour Government to put that right. Therefore, there was a pensions crisis. We must resist the fiction that is promoted by the Opposition parties and the tabloid press in an effort to convince people, especially pensioners, that what they read in the newspapers is true and that they should not believe their own personal experience over the past 10 years. That experience has been a very successful one. For a period of six years I used to get up in the early hours of the morning—