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Plenary, 09 Jun 2004

09 Jun 2004 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Turning the Tide against Nazism

Swinburne, John SSCUP Central Scotland Watch on SPTV

I want to thank Trish Godman for securing this debate. Nazism was despicable. Lord James Douglas-Hamilton eloquently took us over the course of the second world war and I am very grateful for the way in which he did so.

The D-day commemoration ceremonies were the main focus of media attention on June 6, and rightly so. It is only right and fair that due credit was paid to the veterans who have survived the 60 years since that momentous event, which proved to be a turning point in the war, along with the battle of Stalingrad. However, on that day of national remembrance, I found myself taking a different stance from many others. I became increasingly angry as all the dignitaries and politicians lavished thanks and praise on those of that generation who had so selflessly made our future secure by their own sacrifices.

Sadly, with most politicians, it was nothing more than empty rhetoric. That may sound a bit harsh, but I ask members to stop and consider exactly how a D-day survivor—or indeed his wife or children—is being treated by a thankful nation 60 years later. He receives a meagre pension that, with pension credits, can be increased to £105 a week. That equates to a miserable £2.62 an hour for a 40-hour week—about £2 below the minimum income. A quarter of a million pensioners in Scotland live below what the Government regards as being the poverty level. At 75, they get a free television licence and at 80 they qualify for an increase in their weekly pension of a princely 25p. Yes—I am angry; I am very angry. This is certainly not a land that is fit for heroes to live in, far less for them to retire in. Those figures show exactly how much our pious politicians value the sacrifices of all the D-day heroes.

If a veteran is living in his own home and finds himself facing spending his remaining years in a retirement home, the first visitor at his bedside will be a social worker. That visit will not be to inquire about his health, nor will it be to inquire about what his requirements might be. No way. The veteran will simply be required to answer the question, "Do you own your own home?" If the answer is yes, the wheels will be set in motion to enable the social work department to sell that home to pay for the veteran's residential care.

The D-day veteran has probably worked hard all his life since being demobbed, and has scrimped and saved to pay his mortgage. Now, when he is at his most vulnerable, the system is geared up to sell his home to pay for his residential care. However, he will also be offered the much-publicised delayed option, whereby he can sign over his property. It will remain in his ownership until he dies, when the state will get the first option on his estate after the house has been sold to pay for his residential care. How is that for a grateful nation thanking a D-day hero?

Tony Blair and his Government should hang their heads in abject shame. They have let down the D-day generation in the most deplorable manner. Unless public opinion forces these uncaring and hypocritical politicians into doing something for the 1939-45 veterans, the survivors of the Iraqi war will fare no better 60 years down the line.

All that it would take to remedy the situation would be for the Government to provide a weekly pension of £160, which could be financed by the vast savings that would be made by abolition of all means testing. That is down to the Westminster Government. As for the Scottish Parliament, the best thing it could do to thank the D-day generation would be to abolish the council tax and to replace it with a fairer local income tax that is based on ability to pay.

I repeat that, in my view, our country and its politicians—who were all so fulsome in their praise of the gallantry of the heroes of the last war during the D-day ceremonies—are treating those same heroes despicably. The politicians have completely failed a whole generation, many members of which paid the ultimate price as they served their country from 1939 to 1945.