Terry Hyams - "The Pensioners' Lobby of Parliament"

This is the text of a short report which was given to our meeting on November 3rd 2005 by Branch member Terry Hyams who attended the Pensioners' Lobby of Parliament on 12th October on our behalf.

The lobby of Parlaiment was organised by the National Pensioners' Convention http://www.npcuk.org to which our Branch is affiliated and which, in our advancing years, we have been rather more interested in supporting than the National Federation of Youith Clubs!

Terry reported on the lobby in which he had participated on the Branch's behalf. As a Minister Ruth hadn't been able to see him at the lobby but he was instead invited to visit her at her office at the DFES, which he did.

He said that there were a lot of pensioners at the lobby but, seemingly, very few from Bolton. He was critical of the facilities available for the large numbers of pensioners who had to wait to see their MPs but said that most of these were due to the very tight security which he regarded as a "necessary evil". In the lobby hall he had seen David Crausby and had spoken to him.

Later, in conversation with Ruth, he had put the main demands of the pensioners' groups - the linking of pensions to average earnings, annual comprehensive health checks, free community care and better assistance for those living at home.

Ruth had told him that moves to annual comprehensive medical checks were in place and 3,000 community matrons are being appointed. She had said that free long term care is a very difficult question because it is so expensive and likely to become more so. The Government hopes to introduce free local transport country-wide, but this will only be on buses. Another demand is for free access to education and leisure facilities. At present there is free access for people who have less than five of the old GCE "O" levels or equivalent.

There were a number of questions to Terry, a short discussion and the meeting was declared closed.

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