Speeches by Darling.

“What we see here is the tune remaining the same from the Budget, but perhaps the words changing a little. We see short-term gain for the taxman and long-term pain for the taxpayer, and particularly for those who wish to save for their pensions. The Minister was right to highlight how we need to be driving more people t…”

“I am sure that the Minister will join me in congratulating Anna Coles, the director of adult and community services at Torbay council, and her team on achieving a “good” rating from the Care Quality Commission this week. The fly in the ointment is that despite Torbay being the most deprived local authority in south-wes…”

“In the west country, we have seen an icy chilling effect from the NICs hike on our hospitality and tourism industry, particularly in Torbay. The Torbay Coast & Countryside Trust, which looks after some of our beautiful natural spaces, has faced a £100,000 cost from the NICs hike, which has forced it to close its do…”

“Thank you. Patrick and Andrea, do you have any reflections?”

“I would like to focus on people towards the end of their working lives. We have already started to unpick that, but I want to go a bit deeper and think about what support should be provided for older workers towards having a better retirement and what this would look like.”

“You touched on life expectancy; we are running out of time, but that was an area I just wanted to make sure we picked up on. Are there any examples internationally where, if you sadly die within a year or two of taking out the state pension, some type of life insurance payment is made to your family? Clearly that would…”

“Was it you who mentioned the Danish system where there is an advance drawdown? Do you think that is something we should seriously consider?”

“In the light of the review that Dr Suzy Morrissey is about to undertake, what opportunities do you see for her to allow some mitigations for those who are entering into this stage?”

“Definitely.”

“I have electronics and photonics industries in my own constituency, and a lot of their workers are people in their late 50s, 60s and even 70s because they have the knowledge. Patrick, you have started to enter the area of my supplementary question, so I wonder if you could build on this conversation. In the light of th…”

“Thank you. Patrick, do you have any reflections?”

“Are there any international comparisons? Ben was mentioning Sweden, but are there any international examples you could point to as proof of where this works particularly well?”

“The Liberal Democrats welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the findings of the Sayce review into carer’s allowance overpayments, but what assurances can the Minister give that the Government will stop hounding carers about overpayments? Will the Government also apologise?”

“My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I will conclude by saying that there are malevolent powers in power across the Atlantic, and many of us are shocked at what we are seeing emanating from the Oval Office. Let us not give a future Government powers that could be ill used.”

“As someone whose constituency has had reports of Russian spies infiltrating through our harbour, one might think that I would be very much in favour of digital ID. However, it will clearly do nothing about the Russian threat, the small boats crossing the water or fraud in the workplace. I thank the more than 6,000 resi…”

“Disability News Service has stated that both the Treasury and the DWP have refused to clarify the £1.9 billion of cuts to disability benefits set to take place over the next five years that were quietly sneaked into the Budget the other week. Will the Minister now set the record straight and advise us on how those cuts…”

“I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I am sure that the Pensions Minister is listening. Politics is all about calling out injustice, and my hon. Friend does a good job of that for his constituents.”

“It is almost as if my hon. Friend had just seen the next section of my speech. We see such investment as an opportunity to drive social rented housing, our high streets and other investment in our communities. We need to ensure that UK institutions are the first, second and third investors in opportunities in the UK so…”

“For people who are lucky in the lottery of life, their pension can be one of their biggest assets, but, sadly, we know that 12 million people across the United Kingdom are not saving enough. That is around the population of Belgium. Talking more broadly, there is much about the legislation to be welcomed. I am sure the…”

“Would the Minister be kind enough to share the timescale he is working to for these proposals?”