Grey vote sweeteners ?are not adequate'

The power of the ?grey vote? was the motivation for Gordon Brown's offer to pensioners of a ?200 council tax refund and free bus travel, according to age campaigners.

But they questioned whether the Budget sweeteners would sway the voting intentions of the over-65s, who could determine the general election.

?Older people will recognise this cash bribe for what it is: a grand gesture to an increasingly restive older electorate,? said Mervyn Kohler, at Help the Aged. ?Bluntly, this is not an adequate response to the legitimate needs of our older population.?

Tony Blair reacted angrily on Wednesday to the suggestion the government had not done enough for over-65s, telling MPs an ?enormous amount of money? had been put into helping pensioners.

Labour backbenchers cheered Mr Brown's assertion that the ?200 council tax rebate is ?worth more to pensioners than all other proposed schemes?. But political opponents accused the government of substituting pre-election giveaways for genuine reforms.

The spat matters. The verdict of older voters on Gordon Brown's ninth offering could have a big impact on the general election expected on May 5. Pensioners are set to wield a disproportionate influence on this poll. Their propensity to vote in far greater numbers than younger people means the over-65s are set to make up more than a third of those voting. What's more, their vote is up for grabs some 1.8m over-65s are floating voters, research this month suggested.

So it is no surprise the chancellor has tried to woo this highly influential grey vote. He has considerable inducements from his political opponents to try to counter. The Tories are promising a 50 per cent council tax discount for most pensioner households, while the Liberal Democrats' grey vote package includes a higher basic state pension for the over-75s.

The crucial political question is whether Mr Brown has done enough to take the electoral sting from these competing pledges.

The measures are not cheap. The ?200 council tax rebate is limited to pensioner householders already paying the tax similar to the Tory offer but will still cost ?800m in this financial year. Free local off-peak bus travel for pensioners and disabled people will cost ?420m in the next financial year, rising to ?440m in 2007-08, according to the Treasury. These costs are in addition to the funding needed for measures to help pensioners that have already been announced, such as the ?200 winter fuel allowance.

But age campaigners while welcoming the bus and council tax ?pain-relieving? bounties criticised Mr Brown for shying away from addressing the fundamental issue of pensions reform. The extension of the means-tested pensions credit announced in the Budget would not help enough people, they claimed.

?The reality is that 2m pensioners are still in poverty and these measures do not solve the root cause of the problem,? said Gordon Lishman, director-general of Age Concern England. ?The basic state pension is disgracefully low and small annual increases are not good enough.?

Benefits experts said the Treasury's largesse was poorly targetted. Deborah Cooper, a partner at Mercer, the consultants, said: ?It's piecemeal you get to state pension age and suddenly the welfare system becomes much more generous, in an arbitrary way.?

Political opponents tried to counter the grey vote measures by highlighting the fact the council tax payment was promised for this year only, funded by the change to the taxation of oil company revenues. David Willetts, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: ?It's a fiddle . . . our policies of a council tax rebate and pension rise are reliable, year after year, not one-offs.?

Lord Oakeshott, the Lib Dem pensions spokesman in the Lords, argued the grey vote would not be seduced by Mr Brown ?playing Lady Bountiful?.