Cameron Q&A: PM tells pensioner, 70,'work for me'

___________

Download David Cameron's question and answer session with Yorkshire Post readers as a podcast Listen now

Or download to your MP3 player (right-click and choose Save Target As...)

___________

David Cameron said Cynthia Shaw, the daughter of a colliery worker, should come and work for him after the 70-year-old former magistrate demanded to know why a job described as "Turnaround Director" was being advertised at a hospital trust for 1,000 a day, while pensioners were struggling to cope with government tax rises.

Mrs Shaw called for a return to "common sense values" she had learned growing up in Harley, near Wentworth, living in a tiny cottage with her brother and sister and sharing an outside toilet with two other families.

She also criticised the Government's triple lock pensions policy – which would see an increase to the basic state pension each year either in line with earnings, prices or a 2.5 per cent increase, whichever is the greater – claiming the benefit would be "eclipsed" by the rise in VAT.

"I am just a pensioner and you will understand that we have some disappointment and disillusionment with the Government," she said.

"I have paid taxes all my life, paid taxes when I was working – you want taxes when I die. If my savings are in investments or property your capital gains tax will decimate them.

"Your triple lock offer to pensioners will be eclipsed by the rise in VAT – it is hardly an encouragement for hard work and saving. My dad was an old collier – a simple man with simple philosophies. He told us as children if we can't afford it, we can't have it.

"If we want something we've got to work for it. Is it not perhaps a time to return to this common sense thinking?"

As Mrs Shaw sat down to rapturous applause from the audience of 100 Yorkshire Post readers who had come to question the Prime Minister yesterday, Mr Cameron asked if she wanted a job at the Treasury.

The Prime Minister said her feelings about work, public sector pay and saving mirrored his own but added the financial crisis was so bad taxes had to be raised.

"We have been living beyond our means for a very long time," he said.

"We do need to go back to some simple thoughts. As you put and as your dad put so beautifully – work has to pay.

"That is why it was painful to put up VAT but we can't do all of this just through spending reductions."

Mr Cameron admitted that "politicians cannot be trusted with public money" so therefore the Government had created the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent organisation to asses the country's finances.

"They are going to judge us every year. We have set up this independent organisation that is going to hold our feet to the fire, because you should never trust politicians with your money, they waste it and spend it."

He added: "It is a really big change we have made and that's why I can look you in the eye and say it is going to be tough, but we are putting something in place which means we never have a situation where we don't fix the roof when the sun is shining."

Mrs Shaw, who also met former Prime Minister Gordon Brown when she received an award for her work in the community, said her father John Brammah went to work at 13 and worked in the pit throughout his life.a

She said her childhood was very poor and the values her family lived by should be taken into Government.

"I am a lucky pensioner really – many are struggling to even be heard," she added. "They live quietly – and proudly – but unaware of the benefits and help they could be getting.

"I shall watch this space to see if Mr Cameron has the right answers, I have more hope than the previous Government but we will have to wait and see.

"I just think that it is shocking that people in the public sector – in public service – could be paid 1,000 a day when the economy is how it is, and a pensioner will be given 25 pence a week extra when they get to 80-years-old."

The state pension has fallen further and further behind the cost of living in Britain for nearly three decades after it was linked to retail price inflation in 1980.

Changes announced in the emergency budget last week will mean a single pensioner on a full basic state pension can expect a minimum annual increase from next April of 126.95 or 203 for a married couple.

PREMIER DEFENDS PENSION PLANS

The Coalition Government's pension plans had to be defended after claims they would leave people worse off.

Irene Wyatt, a volunteer who said she works "at the coalface" with the elderly in Leeds, told David Cameron his proposals would actually cost pensioners 70 a year.

The Prime Minister denied this was the case, insisting the "triple lock" proposal in the emergency budget would safeguard their future.

The policy will restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings, and will guarantee it goes up each year in line with either earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent, whichever is greater.

He said: "That gives us an important safeguard, so that even if in a year's time inflation is particularly low or earnings are particularly low, the pension will go on advancing."

Financial experts Deloitte said that the changes will mean that a single pensioner on a full basic state pension can expect a minimum annual increase from next April of 126 or 203 for a married couple. Critics, however, have claimed proposed tax rises will wipe out the benefit.