'Means-testing the state pension would leave a big question mark over the value of paying National Insurance'

First, a key tenet of Beveridge’s audacious plan to end want, was a system where everyone paid the same contribution, and everyone got the same benefit.

This universalism was captured in the public imagination in the phrase “from duke to dustman”.

Nowadays we might perhaps recast that in more inclusive terms as “from banker to barrister”; but the key concept of us all being in it together still has a real meaning to people.

At a time when the need to cohere society around shared values is crucial, we shouldn’t throw out something so cherished.

Second, the system of National Insurance that underpins our welfare state was aimed at removing the need for the poor, the sick or the old to rely on charity.

Instead working people paid the insurance premium that entitled them to healthcare, unemployment benefits and the state pension.

That’s why the contributory principle is important and why the previous Government’s plans to get rid of NI were misguided.

The contributions approach is also a key way in which we decide who is – and who is not – entitled to the benefits of the welfare state.

If we start to say those with a full contributions record won’t receive a state pension because they are too rich, we undermine the insurance basis and place a big question mark over the value of paying NI.

That will lead to demands that people be allowed to opt out and overnight we undermine the whole basis of what has been a lasting settlement.

It seems particularly egregious to do this to a generation who has paid National Insurance for the whole of their working life.

Imagine claiming on your house insurance after paying premiums for 40 years and being told the insurer has decided not to pay out because you don’t really need the money.

But the rich don’t need the money say those supporting means testing.

But of course, we tax the rich and get the money back anyway.

An individual only needs an income of £80,000 a year to pay 40 per cent tax at an amount that fully repays their state pension.

At £110,000 income, their 40 per cent tax pays back more than twice their state pension. And if we don’t think this is enough, we can raise taxes.

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Most importantly of all, we need to recognize the sheer wickedness of means testing. It’s bureaucratic, undignified and intrusive – and for all these reasons, whenever it is used, many don’t apply for the benefit.

Often, it’s not the poorest but those “just about managing” who refuse to go through the indignity of claiming a handout.

So why does the “caring” Labour Government want to do this?

Perhaps because means-testing creates lots of public service jobs.

I find it difficult not to see this “workfare” job creation as another example of the grubby deal between Labour and the middle classes who make up their constituency these days.

We often puzzle over the question of what British values are – well I unapologetically think a universal, contributions-based state pension is one of them – and one worth defending.