Politics and Old Age: Older Citizens and Political Processes in Britain by John A. Vincent Guy Patterson Karen Wale

Author:John A. Vincent, Guy Patterson, Karen Wale [John A. Vincent, Guy Patterson, Karen Wale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138733169
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

The price of trade union support for an anti-inflationary policy of wage restraint in the mid-1970s was an improvement to the 'social wage'. Jack Jones was an important figure in securing that support. The pension improvements were part of the increased collective benefits for working people to compensate for limitations placed on wage increases. In 1975 the Social Security Pensions Act, often referred to as the 'Castle Plan', after Barbara Castle, was passed. Complex and innovative, the plan introduced the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS), which based benefits on the best twenty years of earnings and substantially improved women's entitlement. Alongside SERPS, which spread the equivalent of occupational pensions to a large proportion of the working population, the Act required the Secretary of State to 'estimate the general level of earnings and prices in such manner as he thinks fit and ... have regard either to earnings or prices according to which he considers more advantageous to beneficiaries'. In practice this meant that, in years when prices rose faster than earnings, pensions increased in line with the Retail Price Index, and in years when earnings rose faster, they were increased in line with the Average Earnings Index. Enormous gams were made in the period 1974-79, and the pensioners' movement was, if not at the heart of government deliberations on pensions policy, in a position of influence.

The precise involvement of the pensioners' movement is difficult to determine, but narratives of the movement from participants and academics have indicated that its role was significant. However, our informants suggested that Barbara Castle's consultations with the TUC on the legislation were limited. This is hardly surprising given the legacy of her role in the struggles over trade union reform at the end of the Wilson government in the late sixties. 'In Place of Strife', the policy put forward for Wilson by Barbara Castle, was strongly resisted by the trade union movement, including Jack Jones. This clash echoes down the history of the British pensioners' movement even into the twenty-first century. The pensioners' movement alliance with the trade unions did not necessarily place it the centre of policy formulation at this time. As the movement failed to gain credit for the passing of SERFS, its reputation for effectiveness was diminished. However, informed commentators we interviewed on this period suggest that the idea that the government passed the Castle Act without an awareness of public pressure on the pensions issue is implausible. Indeed, one of the dominant ideas in Labour politics of the time was the idea of the 'social wage'. This policy explicitly linked trade union cooperation with government on an anti-inflationary incomes policy in return for improved pensions and other state income maintenance measures. The 1975 Act served to raise the stakes in the debate on pensions in the country as a whole, and can be said to have led eventually to a breakdown in the bipartisan approach of the two main political parties. However, in the short term the prospects for pensioners improved dramatically.

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