I warn you not to get old

Jermey Paxman: What do you make of this pay freeze?

Teresa May: Well some of the details have been announced tonight, I haven’t seen all of the details. I have to say that I think first of all it shows that we are continuing to set the agenda. We’ve been talking for some time now about the need to address the deficit and suddenly lo and behold the government appears to be starting to look at that but in this rather sort of behind the scenes way. As you were saying earlier Jeremy, they had their own conference last week, why didn’t they announce it then?

JP: Perhaps they forgot or something?

TM: Forget about the4 pay freeze for thousands of civil servants, I think not.

JP: Let’s get a straight answer, do you support it or not?

TM: What I have said to you Jeremy is we need to look at all the details of it, but what you are going to be seeing ..

JP: Are you not supporting it?

TM: .. what you will be seeing tomorrow fro George Osborne is that he’ll be setting out an overall approach to how we deal with the deficit, not a sort of piecemeal do you look at this issue or this aspect or that aspect, but our overall approach to dealing with the deficit. We are the party that has been talking about the need to do that and we are going to do that in a proper fashion and not like the way that the government has just with this sort of Treasury briefing announcement coming out in the middle of our conference.

JP: Let’s look at pensions, do you propose to raise the age at which people .. or bring forward the rise in the age at which you can get the pension, now is that going to apply to men and women equally?

TM: Well the change in the state pension age is part of the process of actually equalising the state pension age between men and women. This is … the change to 66 in 2026 and then 68 in 2046 came out of the Turner review. What we are saying is that we would have a further review but with the view to bringing forward that first point at which the state pension age starts to rise. I think most people recognise with people living longer actually we have to look again at the point at which people go .. start to earn their state pension.

JP: But this is a key thing, you propose to bring forward the age at which you get your pension at 66 from the year 2026 to 2016, but the pensions between men and women are only going to be equalised in 2020, aren’t they?

TM: As ..the .. there are two timetables operating, yes. What the review will be doing will be looking at the appropriate timetable for that state pensions age to be ..

JP: So you haven’t decided yet?

TM: Well the announcement is that we will actually have a review which will look at that timetable with a view to raising the state pension age at an earlier point than 2026.

JP: For both men and women?

TM: For .. the state pension age will be applicable when it .. the point of 2026 was coming in for both men and women. So the review will be looking at what should happen to the state pension age for men and the state pension age for women and at what point should it ..

JP: At 2016?

TM: ..and what point should it raise to 66.

JP: Because this would apply to anyone who is currently in their fifties wouldn’t it? It would mean they would have to work a year longer/

TM: I’m afraid there are some tough choices to be made and if we look, as you know yourself, at the aging population that we have in the country, we have to look at what point it is appropriate for people to be receiving their state pension. People .. when the state .. if you think back, when the state pension was first introduced in fact the average age at which men and women lived to was actually significantly less than the point at which the pension was payable so very few people actually got it.

JP: But the consequence of this will be, will it not, that those people who rely upon the state pension, i.e. the poorest members of society, will be disproportionately hit?

TM: It means that ..

JP: That must be true?

TM: Everybody qualifies for the state .. the basic state pension and it means that people will be ..

JP: Those most dependent on it are the poorest, aren’t they?

TM: .. it means that people will be having to work at the point at which the age is r … the age at which you reach your state pension age rises. It means that people will be in the workplace for a year longer than they have to be at the moment in order to qualify for it. But these are exactly the sort of decisions Jeremy ..

JP: I’m right, aren’t I?

TM: .. these are exactly the sort of decision that have to be taken by governments looking at how …

JP: No one denies difficult decision have to be taken, but since you have already conceded effectively that this will hit the poorest people most severely, aren’t we back to the days of you being the nasty party?

TM: No, no we’re not and one of the other things that we’re committed to in relation to pensions is to restore the link between earnings and sate pensions, which many people have been calling for for some considerable time.

JP: Do you think when you look at this there is a case for reducing public sector pensions?

TM: The disparity between public sector pensions and private sector pensions is something that cannot be ignored, certainly, and I think it is an issue that we have to look at. If we are going to look at public sector pensions we would obviously be guaranteeing the accrued benefits would be protected but that’s not something ..

JP: There is no ‘if’ about it, you are going to look at it?

TM: That’s not something that one can deal with in opposition, and one of the first things that we would do in looking at public sector pensions is actually deal with the question of what are the figures around public sector pensions, there are lots of estimates out there about the cost of public sector pensions, we would ask our Office of Budget Responsibility – which we are setting up for other purposes primarily – but we would ask it first of all to conduct an audit of public sector pension so we can be looking at this issue on the basis of some firm evidence.