An appeal to equity.

 Since 31st October 2020, I have been officially semi retired. In fact I have been nothing of the sort.

Partly this was because in the middle of the pandemic there was little to be retired for, particularly during the Winter months when it wasn't very pleasant to go out outside while the restrictions gave little scope for going out inside. But, in addition, when I retired I still had a full caseload which required my full time attention until it was worked off, even as I was only taking on selected new business.

As time has passed however the former issue has eased up, hopefully permanently, while I no longer have enough work to keep me occupied five days a week. So at the beginning of the year I agreed a new working pattern with my my former partners. Unless we had something substantial in court I would not work Mondays or Tuesdays. On a Wednesday I would come into the office to see my residual clients as required and on Thursdays and Fridays, unless I was in court, I would work from home.

This all came into effect last Monday, 31st January. So, the following day Andi and I agreed that we would start behaving as if I was retired and go on a pensioners' expedition. We would go in to Glasgow, have a wee wander around the shops, have a bit of lunch and then see a movie. 

This all transpired but what I write today is inspired particularly by the lunch. It was in a most excellent French Brasserie. We had three courses, wine, water and coffee and were left with a bill of c,£80 before a tip, so it was not particularly cheap but, on a Tuesday lunchtime, it was also really busy. However just about every other person there was a pensioner. Not just couples but mixed groups of diners in varying numbers eating and drinking amidst animated conversation. Having, it appeared, a really good time. And not on an isolated occasion or involving anybody unduly worried about the cost.

What is the point of this minor anecdote? By no means all pensioners are poor. I'm not quite the full bhuna yet but when I am, I certainly won't be. A couple of retired professional people or any number of other final salaried pension recipients are likely to have a joint income, on reaching state pension age, of at least £4000 a month after tax and, if they retired from senior positions, often significantly more. Now, that's a lot more than many working couples are earning. But there's more. Working couples are likely to have significant mortgage costs whereas pensioners will almost certainly have long since paid their mortgages off.. Younger working couples are very likely to have the financial responsibility for children, whereas pensioners children, in the vast majority of cases, will long since have reached the point when they can fend for themselves. Even if pensioners are in a household who expects to have a car, pensioner couples would seldom need two whereas, again, a working couple might, of necessity, require two and be incurring the other travel to work  costs that that very work implies.

Then there are the other benefits. The free bus pass is perhaps the most glaring example but there are numerous other discounts or reduced prices for which the sole qualifying criteria is being a pensioner. Or at least a pensioner prepared to pay a modest joining fee.  Sometimes a  pensioner being defined as having reached the grand old age of 60. Just one example, the annual cost for an adult (admittedly under 65) of non pension age to use the indoor leisure facilities of  North Lanarkshire Council is £374. For someone over 65 it is £50. Now, the full increased minimum wage brings you an income of £17,290 gross. Many pensioners have a higher income than that but even if it is only the same amount they would still have more in their hand because, in another pensioners' perk, while they do pay income tax they do not require to pay National Insurance contributions.

It is that last point which has also prompted this blog. Working people are facing a squeeze on their income through inflation and increased energy prices unprecedented in forty years. But in the very middle of this the Government is proposing to increase National Insurance Contributions. Paid for the purpose of initially providing additional resources for the NHS and subsequently to improve care services. This will cost pensioners not a penny, yet the principal beneficiaries of care services (and, whisper it, in numbers at least, of the NHS) are pensioners! 

Now this is not to argue all pensioners are well off. Far from it. Those surviving on the basic state pension and pension credits are significantly worse off than anybody in full time employment, even allowing for the non existence of housing costs for the former group. But my argument is not that these people should have less, it is that taxation should be based on income, no matter what age is its recipient..

It is difficult to see the reasons against this conclision, on right or left, beyond politics. Pensioners vote in hugely disproportionate numbers so all Parties are apprehensive about incurring their "wrath". Just look at the row over abolishing free TV licenses for the over 75s. But in my view, this move towards greater equity, would not be nearly as toxic for a Tory Government as they fear, not least because it is difficult to see any Labour Government reversing it or even offering to reverse it. But perhaps we could make that offer to the Chancellor now and see how we get on. 

And while we are at it, make him a wider offer on social care costs. It has been obvious for decades that the solution to the cost of social care is a modest flat rate but uncapped Inheritance Tax. When we proposed this in 2010 however the Tories attacked it as a "Death Tax" while, when they did in 2017, our characterisation was a "Dementia Tax".. This will only ever be resolved by a cross party consensus, so let's offer a Royal Commission with a commitment to join the Government in implementing its recommendations. That's in our interests too, for otherwise it will only become a problem that we, one day, in a different way, will inherit. 

I'd happily sit on such a body. I am not without experience in the area and, being semi retired, have some time on my hands.

P.S. The film we saw was "House of Gucci". It was excellent. Oh, and during the trailers there was an advert as to how pensioners might get half price cinema tickets.