Welsh Conservatives today outlined proposals to support pensioners in Wales.
The party’s pledge includes a promise to protect the winter fuel payment, free bus travel, free TV licences, and the pension credit.
Conservatives will also increase the value of the basic state pension for all pensioners and help to stop the spread of the means test by linking the basic state pensions to earnings.
Welsh Conservative candidates underlined their support for free pensioner bus travel in Wales today by promoting the party’s Pensioner Pledge in Barry.
The pledge also commits the party to:
- Giving pensioners more control over their own money by getting rid of the rules that effectively force people to buy an annuity at 75.
- Protecting pensioners from selling their own homes to pay for care – and will never impose a death tax.
- Increasing spending on our NHS each year because it’s our number one priority. We will work hard in the Welsh Assembly to ensure that it is the number one priority for the Welsh Assembly Government too.
- Getting police out on the streets, fighting crime, catching criminals and making you feel safe.
- Raising the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million so people have the opportunity to fulfil that most natural of parental instincts – leave something behind for their children.
Commenting, Alun Cairns, the Welsh Conservatives’ Parliamentary candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan, said:
“Labour is making a series of wholly false claims about our plans to support pensioners in Wales.
“These are deliberately aimed at scaring some of the most vulnerable people in our society who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity – not treated like fools, as Labour is doing.
“The way Labour has treated older people over the last 13 years is shameful.
“We have more pensioners living in poverty in the UK than any other part of western Europe.
“Gordon Brown’s £100bn tax raid has destroyed private pensions, and social care is penalising those who’ve worked hard all their lives.
“In the recent Budget Labour confirmed the basic state pension is going up by less than the rate of inflation, while under Labour the average council tax bill in Wales has doubled.
“My advice to pensioners across Wales is ‘don’t listen to Labour’.”
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan said:
“It’s clear Labour and Gordon Brown aren’t on the side of pensioners. Instead, they’re not being straight about what we’re doing.
“We will not allow Labour’s lies to stand – which is why we’re exposing them as just that today.”
