Torsten Bell

It is for the Chair to decide what is appropriate, but I will come on to the question of fair rates of tax. We should be clear and transparent in how we talk about this issue: any increase in the rate of the state pension is always significantly greater than any increase in tax that follows from that increase due to our not having tax rates of over 100%. It is important that we are heard to say that to people. I will come on to the rates of tax in a second. It is obviously an important part of this debate, given the nature of the petition. The single biggest betrayal of older generations today is not anything to do with pensions. It is the state of the NHS that we inherited: an NHS that our pensioners in particular rely on and that in 2024 was letting far too many of them down. Here is one fact that it is hard to get over: over one in five of those aged over 75 were on English NHS waiting lists, which soared to over 7 million. One in five people over 75 were left on an NHS waiting list. That is what letting down pensioners looks like, and our priority is to turn that around. The number of those waiting has fallen by over 400,000 since we took office. That progress reflects reform, but it also reflects resources, with £26 billion additional investment supporting 5 million appointments. The need to turn around the NHS is something that I think we all agree on. It is slightly telling that there was no mention of the NHS in the previous contributions. As I am also a Treasury Minister, it is my job to remind all hon. Members that we can will the ends, but not the means. As always, that applies particularly to the Liberal Democrats, who gave up connecting the two several years ago. Delivering the funding to raise the state pension and rescue the NHS involves choices. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) talked about one area in the welfare space and about choices there. I gently say to him, having seen the work of the Department under the previous Government, that there was no plan then. Under the current Opposition, there still is no plan to change the welfare system, but they also claim that changes to the welfare system would fund their proposals on defence and on tax. It is implausible that they would make any difference in this area.