 Hello and welcome to my latest policy review. I have a look at the for Britain manifesto of 2020, best manifesto in the country. Now like so many of our policies I feel really really strongly about this one. It's something that touches me quite emotionally, this issue generally and it's a very short policy, very simple policy proposal but a very powerful and very important one and I'm talking about pensions and the reason this hits me and the reason that it's I feel really strongly about it is because I feel really strongly that after working for 50 years of our lives for you know after contributing for all those years to our society to be thrown on the scrap heap at the end of that and left with very little to me is beyond morally reprehensible. It's akin to in fact when our military put their lives and limbs on the line for this country go off, see terrible things, have terrible things happen to them and then they come back and they are thrown on the scrap heap with nothing. It's again morally reprehensible and we cannot and should not tolerate it under any circumstances. We can give 14 billion pounds a year to countries on the other side of the world while our own pensioners and veterans are choosing between heating and eating or sleeping on the street absolutely unacceptable and intolerable. I feel so strongly about that. So as with the others I will read this is very very short I will read from the manifesto and say a few words. So first of all to start, for Britain understands that our country's pensioners are the people who have built and maintained our country and that they deserve, deserve a retirement that is comfortable, dignified and reflective of their contribution to the nation's wealth and status. You know we still have elderly people in this country who remember World War II and who have lived through extraordinary change, often extraordinary hardships and the likes of which my generation doesn't actually understand. The respect we ought to give to our elderly people is increasingly missing from our society and it must must be brought back. To allow as I said at the start to allow our elderly people, our pensioners, to live in hunger is utterly, utterly disgraceful and you know part of the reason it's so utterly disgraceful is the lack of respect and it's a you know when our our state pension is a lot lower than other countries in Europe for example. What message does that send to society in general? That we are our pensioners, millions of our pensioners are in extreme difficulty but we're not helping them. Instead we're sending billions overseas. What message does that send to our society in general about respect for the elderly? Not a great one I would suggest it also doesn't send a great message of respect for ourselves as a country. We are deeply concerned about changes to pension provision for women. The state pension age for women used to be 60 but has risen in recent years and is to be raised to 66 by 2020 and 67 by 2028. Many women argue that they were not given sufficient notice of these changes to their pension plans and as such are asking for transitional arrangements to be made campaigners challenge the government and court but lost the challenge. Some of this is somewhat previous if you like as we're already in 2020 and these changes were to take place in 2020 however what they do show what this episode does show is how quickly the government can make changes and make us work longer. Now I agree entirely that men and women of time and age should be equal but there were great complaints from women for example that they weren't given enough notice to make financial arrangements given how quickly the age they would have to work to and the age they would get their pension out changed and they weren't given sufficient time to make financial arrangements. So a bit of a mess and suddenly often unsurprising from governments that they make messes out of things like this and it says something doesn't it that you know you don't expect this kind of shambolic transformation of people's lives and transformation of people's pensions and transformation of people's ability to put food on their table unless you know a government who makes those kinds of changes it doesn't tell me that they really take into account the needs and the entitlements and the respect the respect it's really what it's all about there wasn't consideration given to the financial arrangements that women would have to to make but more significant in this section is the rise to 67 people will have to work until 67 by 2028 so the age we have to work just keeps going up as it does in other European countries what's extraordinary is that while this happens refugees keep coming asylum seekers keep coming and they keep coming to European countries are you know we're not alone here and even the Conservatives have said that they will open up the door to more and more asylum seekers and refugees which would be bad enough if not for the fact that most of them aren't even actually asylum seekers or refugees many who are coming here and who are being prioritised over and above British people now I don't believe it's a coincidence that we are being asked to work for longer at whilst we seem to think we have some duty to feed the whole world at our own elderly people's expense I think it's scandalous and how much how how long is this going to go on for how much money are they going to drain out of Britain's pocket to pay for the rest of the world how much longer are they going to expect us to work to pay for the rest of the world because that's what this is about it is always the native Brit who has to pay the bills while everyone else with the whole world is looked after and even prioritised over the Brits just as a starting point 14 billion in foreign aid scandalous utterly utterly scandalous for Britain seeks major state reform that is fair to both men and women and which provides for a higher standard of living in line with pension rates in other European countries now there every European country has its own way of doing this there are various and pension as you can imagine state pension private pension the combination of the two complex and different countries have their own way of doing this however when it comes to take home when it comes to money in the pocket Germany France Spain are all considerably higher than we are now we need to know why why is it that British pensioners are so much poorer than French or Spanish pensioners we want to know this and we want to figure what we want to do what they're doing we want our pensioners better looked after that means we can stop wasting money for a start so we can have the money to fund better lifestyles for elderly people so for Britain will just four points here equalize the retirement age for men and women at 63 we should not be working until 67 it's frankly scandalous and it's only happening because the taxpayer is being more and more broadened in order to pay for walk political projects no raise state pensions in line with other European countries yes and yes we can afford it to if we didn't waste so much the NHS wastes seven billion a year and as I will say for I think the third fourth time in this video 14 billion is going overseas yes we can afford to pay better pensions it's just that the elderly are not a priority that's actually that's the harsh truth prevent means testing of pensions unless the combined amount of state plus private is above 30,000 now there is discussion and has been for some time about means testing the state pension that in itself will add another massive layer of bureaucracy and I don't believe it should happen in in most cases certainly in the poorest people's cases above 30,000 is an idea that's been floated and I think it's it's probably a decent compromise reevaluate tax bands for retirees and this is part of of what we need to do I think to get us into a similar level of to Germany and France for example because at the moment 25% of your of your pension is tax-free 75% is taxed and there are various different ways it can be taxed but that needs reevaluation that's all we're asking for is for us to reevaluate this because two major points and I'll end on these two major points one we are lagging far behind our counterparts in other European countries why and what can we do to fix it and two these are our British people these are the people who built this country and the people before them and the people before them for Britain stands for honouring those who went before us in the name of those who are yet to come this is key it is a mark of who we are it also is a mark of who we are when our elderly people are starving or sitting in the freezing cold it's unacceptable it should touch us all it should shame this country's government after government who have allowed hundreds of thousands of our pensioners to face a choice between heating and eating it shall not shall not shall not continue and our starting point our starting point has to be revive a revival of the respect that is due to our elderly people the people who have built this country let's reward them let's show our gratitude with a much higher standard of living certainly in line with the rest of Europe I think that's the least we can do