| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Pensions
4. Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) (Lab): What advice is being given by his Department regarding the value of the state retirement pension for people born after 1962. [160836]
The Minister for Pensions (Malcolm Wicks): We provide information through such means as leaflets and the internet on how the amounts of basic and additional state pension are determined, and on known changes. Anyone can ask for a state pension forecast and we also now have combined forecasts, which combine state and company forecasts. More than 1 million have been sent out.
Mr. Illsley : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response, but I was somewhat surprised, while pursuing a recent constituency inquiry into a contribution record and the value of a future retirement pension, to be told by benefits office staff that the value of the retirement pension of anyone born after 1962 would be negligible. If that is not the case, will my hon. Friend ensure that benefits officers are reminded of the absolute truth of that matter, to prevent such misleading information from being circulated?
Malcolm Wicks: My colleagues in the Department were intrigued by my hon. Friend's reference to 1962; I knew that it was not the date when Barnsley last won the FA cup. In all seriousness, I hear my hon. Friend's point and if anyone in the Pension Service has misled him, I apologise on its behalf. We have rigorous training and education programmes but on this occasion, someone has clearly said something that is just plain daft. We will learn the lessons from that, but we have an excellent Pension Service, which is now doing a very good job across the country, including making large numbers—about 350,000—of home visits. However, on this occasion, we have clearly failed my hon. Friend.
Mr. David Willetts (Havant) (Con): May I invite the Minister to agree that it would be just plain daft to
expect that the pension crisis could be solved by putting more and more pensioners on to means-tested benefits, thereby penalising people for saving? Does he not agree that the best way forward, for people who were born before 1962 and for those born after 1962, would be to raise the value of the basic state pension? Is that not what Mr. Alan Pickering has proposed this week, and why does the Minister not follow his advice?
Malcolm Wicks: It was a Conservative Government who, no doubt advised by the young—then even younger—hon. Gentleman, abolished the earnings link with the basic state pension in 1980. That meant that this Government inherited a situation of much pensioner poverty, which we had to tackle through targeted means. On the important issue of savings, whereas under the Conservative Government there was a pound for pound reduction against income support for any savings, we have introduced the savings credit element of the pension credit so that savings can be rewarded.
Mr. Willetts: Does the Minister not recognise, however, that there is a growing consensus that the best way forward is to increase the value of the basic state pension, to help to get pensioners off means-tested benefits and to encourage people to save? That is what the National Association of Pension Funds wants, what the charities looking after old people want and what the Conservative party is calling for. Why is the Minister in a minority, opposing that proposal?
Malcolm Wicks: The difficult and, I am bound to say—in terms of its impact—cruel logic of the Conservative proposals is that as the basic state pension increased, apparently in line with earnings, the poorest and most hard pressed, including those on pension credit, would presumably receive only a price-inflation increase. The cruel logic of the hon. Gentleman's proposals is that the poorest elderly—who are often the oldest, two out of three of them women—would gain least from the Tory proposals.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) (Lab): On reducing pensioner poverty, is not the real problem with reliance on mean-tested benefits that, despite the time and money spent by both the previous Conservative Government and this Government on increasing the take-up of claims, pensioners are more reluctant than any other group of claimants to apply for means-tested benefits? So long as the Government rely on means-tested benefits to relieve pensioner poverty, a substantial minority of pensioners will remain poor.
Malcolm Wicks: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has acknowledged, to put every extra billion pounds—we have now spent some £9 billion extra on pensions since 1997—simply on to the flat rate would make life easier for our Department, in that it would be administratively simpler, but would it be fairer? Would it be fairer to women or to the poor and hard pressed? Of course, the answer is no. Although there are some who wish to knock pension credit, it is proving a great success. We are on target, so much so that 1.9 million individuals—almost 2 million—are
better off financially because of pension credit. I hope, therefore, that colleagues will not talk about this as a failure when in fact it is a considerable success for public service.Disability Living Allowance
6. Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): If he will make a statement on the number of people claiming disability living allowance. [160839]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State forWork and Pensions (Maria Eagle): In the five years to31 August 2003, the number of severely disabled people receiving disability living allowance increased by more than 25 per cent. to more than 2.5 million. In 2003–04, we expect to spend some £7.5 billion on helping people with the extra costs arising from their disability.
Mr. Gray : A constituent of mine was, tragically, one of those involved in the Bali bomb outrage, in which he lost his right arm. On returning to the UK, he applied for disability living allowance but was told that he was not eligible for it because he had been resident abroad in Beijing for six months. Will the Minister consider changing that rule, so that people who have been disabled in such terrorist tragedies or who are serving in our armed services overseas would none the less be eligible for the allowance immediately on their return to the UK?
Maria Eagle: I have every sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's constituent. If we changed for individual groups of people the eligibility for DLA and the time that a person has to wait before getting the benefit in payment, it would make the administration of the benefit incredibly difficult. We shall, however, bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has brought to the House today, and we shall certainly consider what he has said.
Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): Will the Minister confirm that the last time that a Government attempted to measure the proportion of people entitled to this important disability benefit was in 1996–97, before the present Government even came to power? Will she confirm that the estimate at that time was that half of all seriously disabled people entitled to this important benefit were not claiming it? Why have the Government done no work on assessing the scale of the problem now? Why has there not been a mass take-up campaign for DLA? Is it acceptable that £1 billion for disabled people is going unclaimed every year?
Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman might not have heard my response to the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), which was that the number of people taking up disability living allowance and qualifying for it has increased by 25 per cent. It is difficult to say, ahead of a claim, who would be entitled to the benefit and who would not, because it is not income related. Rather, it is dependent on the effect of a disabling condition on the care and mobility needs of the individual concerned. It is therefore not at all easy to come up with sensible and reliable figures about what
the take-up of the benefit might mean. Also, there are some methodological faults in the studies to which the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) referred.Means-tested Benefits
7. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey) (LD): What the take-up rate of means-tested benefits was in Greater London at the beginning of 2004. [160840]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): Today my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the publication of the latest progress report, which shows that, as at29 February 2004, 245,000 pensioner households in London were receiving pension credit, with an average award of £59. Additionally, at the latest count in August 2003, there were 364,400 non-minimum income guarantee income support claimants, and 133,000 income-based jobseeker's allowance claimants in London. I regret that details of housing benefit and council tax benefit are not available below national level.
Simon Hughes: The figures are useful as far as they go, but I hope that the Minister will also provide the other half of the sets of figures, by which I mean the number of people in Greater London who are not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. Given that the Government are now moving towards some sort of conclusion on a form of local taxation that is different from the present one, will the Minister assure the House that his Department is feeding into other Departments the proposal that would make it much easier for people not just to pay a fair contribution towards local tax, but to receive what they are entitled to locally from the state? That matters hugely to people in this city and in the rest of the country.
Mr. Pond: Sadly, the hon. Gentleman will not have heard our earlier discussions, as he obviously has a just-in-time approach to oral questions, but we have already discussed issues surrounding the take-up of various benefits. He will know that we are working very hard to ensure that people who need and deserve help—those who are entitled to pension credit, council tax benefit, attendance allowance and other benefits—do get that help. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join us in that process. On his proposals for reforming council tax, he knows that we are examining its structure to see if a more appropriate means of local taxation is possible. I very much doubt, however, whether it will end up being the Lib-Dem proposal for a form of local income tax.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): Is not the complexity of the system one of the reasons why take-up is so disappointing? Given that the Government have extended means-tested benefits so high up the income scale, is it not an administrative absurdity that people have to pay tax with one hand in order to get it back as benefit with the other? Could that not be simplified and made much easier for people—[Interruption.]—in Greater London.
Mr. Pond: The right hon. Gentleman may be disappointed, but Government Members are not
disappointed. Increasing numbers of people—hundreds, thousands and millions—are getting extra help, whether through the pension credit or new tax credits for families with children. If Conservative Members spoke more to their constituents to find out whether they are disappointed, they would find that most people—certainly with the pension credit, which follows a simple free phone call—are able to discover what they are entitled to. Many hundreds of thousands of them are doing precisely that, and are better off as a result.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |