Southwark Pensioners welcome Hughes proposal for Pensioners' Parliament

9.00.00am GMT Fri 31st Oct 2008

Tony Farsky, the Chair of Southwark Pensioners Action Group, has now formally responded to the proposal put earlier this year by Simon Hughes MP for a Southwark Pensioners' Parliament. Simon Hughes made this proposal at a meeting he hosted in the House of Commons earlier in the year to launch the series of events to mark the centenary of the 1908 state pension.

In a letter to Mr Hughes, the Southwark Pensioners Chair has suggested that the first meeting of a Southwark Pensioners' Parliament should take place in January next year, which will be exactly 100 years after payment of the first state pension through the post office in this country. Mr Farsky has asked that part of the first meeting should be a discussion with Southwark's three MPs on the need for an immediate increase of the pension above the poverty level, and that a conservative party representative should also be invited.

Simon Hughes will now invite his Commons colleagues to agree a date in January and is proposing that the first meeting is held in Walworth as near as possible to Browning Street where the campaign for the state pension first began in 1898.

Simon Hughes' plan is that the Southwark Pensioners' Parliament should meet three times a year, alternating between Southwark and the House of Commons, with the agenda drawn up by Southwark pensioners. It has been agreed that all Southwark pensioners will be welcome to attend.

"It is a fitting tribute to the original Walworth born campaign for the state pension and the continuing energy of Southwark pensioners that, from next year, Southwark will have its own pensioners' parliament. Pensioners are not only a most important group in our borough, but also a group which grows bigger every year. One of the tests of a civilised society is how we look after older people. In this time of financial difficulty we must absolutely make sure that the elderly and the vulnerable are not the ones who suffer."