At the start of this campaign I said we would fight this election for the people who are ignored in our society.
The ones who work hard, pay their taxes, live decent lives and yet feel they are sidelined.
And I think that is most true of the older generations in our country.
There’s a sense that once you retire from work you’re retired from national life.
The TV screens and magazines are full of people born in the past few decades.
And in politics, too, you can be shut out of the debate.
Too often in politics it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil – the loudest pressure groups that win all the attention.
That can mean that those who are quiet and don’t like to complain get overlooked.
Worse still is when politicians talk down to older generations, as though when you hit sixty five all you have to offer society just vanishes.
That attitude is out-dated, it is wrong and it needs to change.
So today, as we launch our manifesto for older people, I’m going to be very clear about what I want to do.
I want to bring older generations right into the mainstream of our national life.
Yes, to treat them with respect and kindness.
Yes, to give them the dignity and security they deserve.
But also to call on their wisdom and values.
Now let me tell you how we can do that and why we must do that.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Let me take the ‘why’ first.
Why do I want to bring older generations into the mainstream of national life?
There are practical reasons and there are emotional reasons.
The most obvious practical reason is that we have a rapidly ageing population.
Today, one in six people is aged 65 or over.
In 30 years’ time, it will be almost one in four.
Are we really saying we’re going to sideline a quarter of our population?
There is a great change coming in this country and it can be positive – but only if we change our attitudes to age and ageing to make the most of it.
And there’s another practical reason we need to bring older generations into the mainstream of our national life.
It’s about the values they hold – you hold.
I speak a lot about our mission as a party, which is to build the Big Society.
Put simply, this is a society bound by togetherness, neighbourliness, an understanding that life is not about ‘me’ but about ‘we’.
The Big Society is our big idea, but I need to say thanks to my mum and dad because really it’s down to them.
They showed me how a Big Society could work every day I was growing up.
And if we win, nothing we will make me happier than to be able to take that idea – using the values they gave me – to help bring our country together.
My father used to work really long days but he always had time for the Parochial Church Council and the Parish Council
My mother was a magistrate.
She used to come home and tell us all the stories about the Newbury bypass protestors and Swampy up his tree.
But the thing that strikes me looking back is how they wore their public service so lightly.
This wasn’t some great Duty with a capital D that they felt the need to grandstand about.
Like so many of their generation the values implicit in the Big Society – duty, responsibility, obligation – are instinctive…
…it’s just what you should do.
But quite apart from these practical reasons, there’s an emotional reason why we should do this.
We owe them – we owe you.
You fought the war so that we could enjoy freedom from tyranny.
You endured the years of rationing so that we could enjoy years of plenty.
And you built the welfare state so that we could enjoy decades of universal healthcare.
GOVERNMENT ACTION
The question is: how do we meet our obligations?
I believe government has a big part to play to make sure that pensioners are provided for, that their healthcare is secure and that they can live with dignity.
And here I think that Gordon Brown has failed in his duty.
Every month I receive thousands of letters and emails from older people.
Today, I want to tell you about just one I received from a pensioner last year, because it really touched me.
He doesn’t want me to give you his name.
He told me that he had hit on such hard times, found it so hard to make ends meet, that he had to go and sell his father’s Great War medals – including his Gallipoli Star.
But this is the worst bit.
He also had to sell this father’s collection of trench art, created in the trenches of Ypres – treasures he’d been hanging on to for his six grandchildren.
What an outrage that this should happen in our country.
Gordon Brown talks about his moral compass.
But when his tax raid took billions from private pensions...
...when he recently confirmed the basic state pension is going up by less than inflation...
...when social care penalises those who have worked hard and saved hard by forcing them to sell their home...
...when he proposes a new death tax, taking up to £50,000 of what you have when you die to pay for your care...
...when he is fighting this election on plans that potentially scrap the Disability Living Allowance for the over-65s and to scrap the Attendance Allowance for future claimants…
…I’ve got to ask: just where is that moral compass pointing?
It is fundamental to my values that people who have worked hard all their lives, and are now drawing their pension, deserve to be treated with respect.
So let me tell you what you will get from any government I lead.
You will have more money to live on.
Parties have been talking about raising the pension in line with earnings for years.
But it never happens.
We’ll be the first party that finally makes it happen.
Because of the difficult choice we’ve made on bringing forward the increase in the retirement age to 66, we’ll be able to raise the basic state pension in line with earnings.
Not just for one year, but for every year – starting in 2012.
What’s more, we will protect your pension from the rising cost of living by working with local councils to freeze council tax for two years.
And we will give you more control over your money by getting rid of the rules that force you to buy an annuity.
You will keep the benefits you depend on.
Don’t believe Labour’s lies that we will cut them or get rid of them.
The Winter Fuel Allowance, pension credit, free bus travel and TV licences for over-75s – these will all stay.
No ifs, no buts.
You will be able to fulfill that most natural parental instinct - the desire to leave something for your children.
The inheritance tax threshold will be raised to one million pounds.
And let me say this, you will get the residential care you need – the care you want – without having to sell your home or pay a death tax.
I think it’s so unfair that today you can have people who have worked hard all their lives, who’ve saved, paid down the mortgage, done all the right things, yet if they go into residential care, they have to spend every penny of that money.
And maybe the neighbour next door, who didn’t work hard, didn’t save, and went about things a different way, they get the whole thing paid for free.
Now, because of the complete mess with the public finances, we can’t afford to make all care free.
But what we can promise is this: if you put aside around £8,000 on turning sixty-five, we can guarantee you won’t have to pay for residential care.
That would remove the need to sell your home to pay for care and it would mean you could pass your home on to your children rather than have to use it to pay for your care bills.
And for people with a chronic illness or long-term conditions who need care at home, we will extend personal budgets so people can make decisions about the sort of support they need.
This is a big challenge – a long-term challenge – and I want this country to come together and find the right answers.
COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
But doing more for older generations isn’t just about what government does, it’s about what we do, what society does.
We’re all in this together.
Businesses have a responsibility.
I’ve always thought it’s ridiculous that people are expected to work full pelt until the age of sixty five and suddenly retire when so many would like to carry on in some capacity.
So we need more options available – part-time work, more flexible retirement ages.
But all this requires a fundamental change in the mindset of our employers.
Too many of them seem to think that our brains and our bodies suddenly go bust with our first grey hair.
They need to wake up to the fact that older people make very good employees.
B & Q opened a store in Macclesfield with staff aged entirely over 50 – and what happened?
They had an 18 per cent increase in profits…
…staff turnover was six times lower…
…and there was 40 per cent less absenteeism.
The media and advertising have a responsibility too.
We’re not living in some brave new world where only the young exist.
They need to make more of an effort to reflect the real world we live in.
I think it’s fantastic that Marks and Spencer are using Twiggy – a woman in her sixties – to front a national campaign.
It’s great that Dove uses older women to promote its pro-age campaign.
And it’s good for them too – because their sales have gone up as a result.
So let’s stop erasing old age from the magazines and the TV screens and start celebrating it.
We also have a community responsibility to bring older generations into the mainstream of our lives.
So often we just think of older people as passive recipients of voluntary help and care: receiving meals on wheels, being taken on days out, being visited by kind neighbours.
Of course it’s vital that this continues – and National Citizen Service will give new opportunities for young people to support older generations in their communities.
But I also know that a lot of older people want to give help and care rather than just receive it.
There’s nothing worse than for people who have been active all their lives, who have had people depending on them for decades, to feel like they are no use anymore.
Already one in five people aged over seventy-five volunteers for their community once a month - and I imagine there are so many more out there who just want to know how to get involved.
So our invitation to join our government, our policies for devolving power, our plans to create the Big Society, will tap into this huge energy source.
Older people can be the army of the Big Society to bring new life to our communities.
But perhaps most importantly of all, we each have a personal responsibility to our grandparents, our neighbours, our former teachers.
A report by Help the Aged said one million older people often or always feel lonely.
And that’s not too surprising when you learn that one in ten older people have less than monthly contact with families, friends and neighbours.
So it’s up to all of us to reach out.
And to the grandchildren here I would say this: don’t forget that you’ll learn more from a half hour chat with your Grandparents than you ever will from half an hour spent on your iPod or on YouTube.
They have amazing things to tell you.
But you’ll only hear them if you ask them.
CONCLUSION
There’s a sense that today as a country we only value what’s youthful, new, modern.
Indeed, Tony Blair once said that Britain “is a young country”.
It isn’t.
The fact is we’re an old country – with our best years ahead of us.
That’s how I see Britain – and it’s how older people think of themselves.
The best years are ahead.
To make the most of them, we need a revolution in the way we treat older people.
Yes, that means giving them a pension that gives them security, health and social care that gives them dignity.
But it also means changing our attitude.
Older people are not a burden or a liability.
Quite the opposite.
You’re talking about decades of experience and judgment.
People invested with the values of decency and duty and obligation.
We all have a responsibility – in our businesses, in our communities, in our personal lives – to draw on the wisdom and energy they have to offer.
They made this country great.
Together, we can make this country greater still.