"We should welcome in first time student opera-goers, but we should welcome in first-time pensioners too," he said.
He said Scottish pensions would be more secure and cheaper to administer if Scotland remained in the UK, at a time when pensioner numbers in Scotland were rising fast.
I hear all the time about pensioners struggling to help their children put down deposits on first homes, after a multi-decade property boom that has seen houses in some areas increase in value one hundredfold in just 40 years, lifting even modest family homes way out of the reach of those on ordinary incomes.
Some informants explain that since they have plenty of time as pensioners, the need for quick transport by car has lost its importance, rather they have time to walk or bicycle for errands that used to be done by car.
Not far from the new malls and hotels along the River Danube is Trhovisko Mileticova, a market dating from Communist times, where pensioners search for bargains among the barrels of pickled vegetables and cheap synthetic blouses from Asia.
"There have been good times and bad times," said the pensioner, who at 74 is old enough to remember the years when the Soviet Union helped China to rebuild its shattered economy, and the Sino-Soviet split that followed in 1960.
The pensions minister at the time, Steve Webb, said pensioners could buy Lamborghinis should they wish to do so after the rules forcing people to buy annuities were swept away in April 2015.
Earp says: 'The cost can be a big worry for first-time buyers.' Pensioner 'I pay more tax under Brown Peter Dunnn, 65, a retired export marketing manager, from Wolverhampton, had been hoping to see the Chancellor help pensioners who fall just above the thresholds for state assistance through the minimum income guarantee and the pension credit.
Catherine McKinnell MP, the shadow exchequer secretary to the Treasury, said: "Tax avoidance must be clamped down on, especially at a time when families, pensioners and businesses who pay their fair share are feeling the brunt of the double-dip recession.
She had a longer run in Brookside as Madge Richmond (1986-87), who two-timed the widowed pensioner Ralph Hardwick Ray Dunbobbinn), and in 1999 was in two episodes of EastEnders as Jane Healy, attending the wedding of her daughter Mel (Tamzin Outhwaite).
For a limited time, from October 2015, current pensioners, and those who reach SPA before the introduction of the new single-tier pension, will be able to top up their entitlement by buying a new class of NI contributions.
