Jim Ferguson

David Cameron has launched the Older People Manifesto - an important addition to the Big Society agenda.

The Manifesto unveils policies designed to appeal to the older community in Britain, placing them at the centre of the political narrative and continuing David Cameron’s pledge to champion the great ignored.

“I want to bring older generations right into the mainstream of our national life”, Cameron said in a speech today. “Yes, to treat them with respect and kindness, and to give them the dignity and security they deserve - but also to call on their wisdom and values”.

Click here to download the Older People Manifesto

Read David’s speech in full

The Manifesto highlights:

1. Work and equality.
Work to stop discrimination against older people and introduce better support for older workers who lose their jobs, by:

• Looking at how to end the retirement age to promote fairness in the workplace.
• Scrapping the effective obligation to buy an annuity by age 75, to give people greater control over their finances.
• Providing specialist back-to-work support for the over 50s.

2. Greater financial security.
Protect pensioners’ benefits and create new forms of help to promote more independence and security, by:

• Protecting key benefits: the Winter Fuel Allowance, free bus passes, free TV licences and the pension credit. And unlike Labour, we will not scrap Attendance Allowance or Disability Living Allowance for the over 65s.
• Providing a better basic state pension by linking it to earnings in 2012.
• Freezing council tax for two years in partnership with local councils, saving a typical Band D pensioner household over £200 a year.
• Giving more help to lower fuel bills through a ‘green deal’, helping to tackle fuel poverty.

3. Health and independence.
Health and social care that is fairer and more flexible, reducing the increasing isolation and vulnerability of elderly people, by:

• Health and social care that is fairer and more flexible, reducing the increasing isolation and vulnerability of elderly people, by:
• Protecting NHS spending so it has the resources it needs to meet people’s rising expectations about the quality of care they should receive.
• Providing single budgets, combining social and health funding, to give older people direct control over the care they receive.
• Scrapping Labour’s jobs tax, and using the £200 million a year this will save the NHS to create a Cancer Drugs Fund – making sure that everyone has access to the cancer drugs their doctors think will help them.
• Devolving public health budgets, so communities can spend money to prevent older people getting ill in the first place.
• Making sure that no-one is forced to sell their own home to pay their care home fees.
• Delivering better palliative care to people at the end of their lives.

4. Family and community.
Greater recognition of the important role that older people and grandparents play in their communities, and more opportunities for older people to take a more active part in building a stronger, more family-friendly society, by:

• Greater recognition of the important role that older people and grandparents play in their communities, and more opportunities for older people to take a more active part in building a stronger, more family-friendly society, by:
• Getting older people involved in new programmes of civic action and volunteering, at the vanguard of a new army of activists who will help build the Big Society.
• Creating new powers for local communities to save community assets, like post offices, that are of great value to older people.
• Giving greater rights to grandparents after parental break-up or in cases where a child needs to be taken into care.