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Housing Benefit
9. Mr. David Kidney (Stafford): When he expects to announce the results of the review of housing benefit. [63194]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): We have announced a project to simplify the housing benefit rules and regulations and to improve the administration and delivery of the benefit. We are working in conjunction with local authority associations and further announcements will be made in due course. In addition, we have announced a small-scale pilot, which will examine the issues surrounding the under-occupation of social housing.
Mr. Kidney: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Does she agree that the housing benefit system established by the previous Government can sometimes operate as a severe disincentive to work because of the steep rates at which benefits are withdrawn when recipients find work? Does she also agree that the Government's policies to be introduced later this year--the range of new deal projects and the working families tax credit--offer a powerful incentive to work for those who can work? Therefore,
does she agree that it might be helpful if housing benefit could be changed this year, so that those changes could work with the grain of those other Government policies?
Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is right to point out that some severe work disincentives--what I call the hassle factor--are inherent in the current design of the benefit. People spend so long trying to get their housing benefit allocation right that they are reluctant to come off that benefit to try, say, a temporary job. In the review, we are looking to see how we can reduce the hassle factor and whether we can create more obvious incentives to make that often difficult move from benefit into work. I accept absolutely my hon. Friend's point.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough): Following the answer that was given by the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight), will the Minister give a categoric pledge--an assurance--that there has been and will be no watering down in the campaign by the Government and local authorities to combat housing benefit fraud?
Angela Eagle: Far from watering down the campaign to combat that fraud, we are gearing it up not only in the fraud strategy itself, but in our fundamental look at how the benefit is administered. As I said earlier, we have already announced £100 million extra to resource local authorities to enable them to check much more effectively how they administer housing benefit. The hon. Gentleman should await announcements on some of the changes in the simplification project, which I hope will tighten the gateways to that benefit and ensure that payments are right first time and stay right.
Fuel Poverty
10. Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): What recent representations he has received over fuel poverty among the elderly on small incomes. [63195]
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms): We have no record of any recent representations to the Department principally about fuel poverty among the elderly, but, since January 1998, we have received 439 letters about winter fuel payments.
Mr. Winnick: Does my hon. Friend accept that elderly people suffer much distress as a result of cold weather such as we have had today? What the Government have already done--what the Tories refused to do--is very welcome indeed, but could Ministers consider whether there could be a more flexible arrangement for cold weather payments? I and, I am sure, all Labour Members, feel that it is quite wrong that so many elderly people on small incomes should suffer such distress during cold weather when we should be in a position to help them.
Mr. Timms: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important subject. I agree that the introduction of winter fuel payments has been an important step forward. About £1 billion will be made available this Parliament. A total of 3.3 million payments were included in a computer run at the weekend, and we hope that the full 10 million payments will have been paid out by the end of next week.
My hon. Friend is right to say that the cold weather payments scheme is another important means of the Government tackling the problem. An interdepartmental group on fuel poverty, led by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), is considering a wide range of fuel poverty issues, including the arrangements for cold weather payments, and it intends to publish proposals in the spring.
Pensioners (Benefit Refusals)
11. Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham): What estimate he has made of the number of basic rate pensioners who have refused increased benefits to which they are entitled; and if he will make a statement. [63196]
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): We are committed to encouraging and helping more pensioners to claim their entitlements. The new minimum income guarantee will help in that respect. Estimates specifically of basic rate pensioners who are not claiming their entitlements, as opposed to pensioners in other circumstances, are not available.
Mrs. Lait: In an earlier answer to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), the Secretary of State referred to the mystery surrounding the number of pensioners who refuse to apply for benefits. Has he never met pensioners in his constituency who are too proud to claim and believe that benefits are charity? Would not it be better for the Government to stop attacking the insurance principle and increasing means testing, and to allow those proud elderly people to feel that they have contributed sufficiently to be entitled to claim?
Mr. Darling: I have been a Member of Parliament for only 11 years, but in all the time that I spent in opposition I never heard the Tory Government saying that they were against means testing. Indeed, I rather got the impression that they were in favour of it. When we made our announcement on pensions in December, we reinstated the insurance principle--the contributory principle--and we are making it absolutely clear that if people work throughout their life and pay their contributions they will get a decent pension in retirement. The reason for so many pensioners now having to rely on income support is that for the past 20 years the Tory Government did absolutely nothing to put pensions on a proper footing for the future.
Mr. Vernon Coaker (Gedling): Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why pensioners do not claim the benefits to which they are entitled has been the fact that over the past few years there has been continual talk of fraud in the system? People have been made to feel that they are somehow not entitled to the benefits that they can claim. The Government have introduced measures of success that include take-up rates. If we can encourage people to claim, and measure our success by criteria such as take-up rates, we will ensure that pensioners get the benefits to which they are entitled.
Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right, and the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) raised an important point--at least in the first part of her question--because some current pensioners who are entitled to income
support are not claiming it because they feel that they should not be doing so, perhaps because they are too proud to do so. The whole point of the minimum pension guarantee was to ensure that the money we had available would go to the poorest pensioners. We are determined to ensure, by whatever means that we can, that as many people as possible who are entitled to that benefit receive it, so that they can sit at home and live in some comfort. That simply has not happened in the past.Means-tested Benefits
12. Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): What plans he has to reduce the number of families on means-tested benefits. [63197]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): We are determined to do everything that we can to help those who can work to do so, which is why we want to modernise the structure of working-age tax and benefits; to create the right incentives for families; and to reward work while simultaneously providing security for those who cannot work.
Mr. Brazier: The Secretary of State, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman), said that the Department was reviewing the impact of means-tested arrangements on pensioners' disincentives to save. Regardless of the outcome of that review, will the Minister confirm two points? First, will she confirm that the minimum pension guarantee will substantially increase the number of pensioners on means-tested benefits? Secondly, will she confirm that, under current plans, the minimum pension guarantee will substantially increase the number of those on small incomes who face strong disincentives to save?
Angela Eagle: I fail to understand the sudden concern about means-tested benefits. The figures show that, in 1978-79, 4.9 million people in families were receiving income-related benefits. By May 1997, at the end of 18 years of Conservative rule, 11.6 million people in families were receiving those benefits. I think that that is where the problem lies.
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