I am wondering what the country will think of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, whose memory goes back to last year, when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to give to people over 70, who were earning wages, any further consideration with regard to old age pensions. I remember the howl of indignation which came from hon. Members opposite, and how they claimed that old men of 70 could work and that they ought to have something at the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to enable them to go on. Probably, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) has said, the Government are doing this by agreement with the employers without ever consulting the ordinary workers. Let it be remembered that in everything which the trade union does, the old people have the first consideration, even without paying any contributions, so that they may have enough to have a reasonably comfortable existence at the end of their lives.

This Clause means that 90 per cent. of the workers of this country will be pauperised at the age of 55. What can a man or a woman of Go do with 10s. a week? It will not pay for a shelter above their heads. They will be left to the mercy, and, in many instances, more than the mercy, of their own fellows, who have always looked after these people. Common justice demands that these people, having made a contract with the State, should have a right to existence and should have that for which they have paid. But you are taking it away. The country has told you in the Forest of Dean that you are on the wrong lines as far as the workers are concerned. We are out to do our best to make it possible that every man and every woman, when he or she can toil no longer, will have a subsistence that will keep him or her in common decency. I will certainly do my best to tell the country exactly what this Government has done in this Bill.