---

Pension Credit

4. Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab): What steps he is taking to provide pensioners with information about pension credit. [167678]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith): By the end of this month, ahead of schedule, we will have written to every pensioner household in the country about pension credit. From May, we will make further contact with those households that are most likely to be eligible but that have not responded so far. The campaign will be supported by TV and press advertising as well as local activity in partnership with Help the Aged, Age Concern and Citizens Advice. Thanks to record take-up in March, 2.9 million pensioners are receiving pension credit, with an average household award of £41.34 every week.

Ms Keeble : I am grateful for that response. May I put a particular point to my right hon. Friend about the need for explanations and information for pensioners to include information about housing benefit? I have raised this question with him before, and the information that he has provided has very much satisfied my constituents. None the less, there is a need to ensure that people possess all the necessary information when they make their applications so that they know exactly where they stand financially.

Mr. Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for her remarks. She has indeed raised these matters with me personally
 
26 Apr 2004 : Column 622
 
and in correspondence, and I am pleased to have been able to satisfy her and her constituents. She is absolutely right that it is important for people to have accurate information, including the extent to which thresholds relating to housing benefit and council tax benefit had already been increased to allow for those who would be in receipt of the savings credit.

Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): A pensioner who wants to find out about pension credit might think that ringing the Pension Service was one good strategy. Yet the Minister told me last month in a written answer that in January, the most recent month for which figures are available, 100,000 pensioners abandoned calls to the Pension Service, presumably because they were fed up waiting for someone to answer. Is that not a disgrace, and what will he do about it?

Mr. Smith: If anyone wants information about eligibility for pension credit, I recommend that they ring the pension credit application line on 0800 991234. That has a record of answering well over 90 per cent. of calls within 30 seconds, hence the record take-up of pension credit in March, which has enabled us to hit our target of 2.4 million pensioner households and 2.91 million individual pensioners gaining from pension credit, which is help that they would not have had from a Conservative Administration or from the Liberal Democrats.

Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead) (Lab/Co-op): I shall follow on from the excellent supplementary asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble). Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State agree that the biggest barrier is still the complexity of the present scheme? In particular, I have a constituent who has a 41-year-old daughter living with her who pays hardly any money for her keep. As a result, that pensioner continues in poverty and is also unable to claim the money that she really needs. Can my right hon. Friend ensure that the system is simplified so that take-up by people in such positions can be given a following wind?

Mr. Smith: We have made strenuous efforts to make take-up of pension credit as simple as possible. The most convenient way to do so is through the pension credit application line that I just mentioned. We have had much positive feedback, including independent research, that shows high satisfaction levels with the quality of advice and support that pensioners are given. In addition, we have the local Pension Service, which has now conducted some 400,000 home visits in especially complex cases or if the pensioner involved is frail or very elderly. I commend the home visiting service of the Pension Service, which is doing a great job.

Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con): In the context of savings by pensioners, can the Secretary of State explain why the national UK savings ratio has fallen by half since his party came into power?

Mr. Smith: As I have been pleased to explain to the hon. Gentleman before, the savings ratio reflects people's general confidence in the state of the economy and their expectations of low inflation. That is why the
 
26 Apr 2004 : Column 623
 
ratio has been lower in times of economic stability and confidence, under Governments of both political persuasions, and has been higher when people undertake precautionary saving because they fear inflation. Thankfully people are not fearful of inflation at present and that helps to explain why the ratio is lower. As for pension savings, the measures that we are putting in place through our informed choice strategy—and the measures in the Pensions Bill that my hon. Friend the Minister for Pensions has just set out—will build confidence in pension savings, so that a pension promise made will be a pension promise honoured. That is in contrast to the scandalous situation that has arisen from the weaknesses in the Tories' Pensions Act 1995.

Private Pensions

5. Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): What recent representations he has received on public confidence in private pensions. [167679]

The Minister for Pensions (Malcolm Wicks): I outlined earlier that the Government believe that the issues of confidence and security are crucial. They determine many of the things that we are doing, including the employers' taskforce, which exists to consider good practice so that more people can benefit from occupational pension schemes. I emphasise again the importance of the Pensions Bill, which will introduce the new regulator and the protection fund.

Bob Spink : For such an excellent Minister that was an outrageously complacent response. It completely ignored the plight of the 60,000 pensioners who have already lost their pension rights. Last week, the Prime Minister hinted at a change in policy. When will the Government stop hinting, spinning and raising expectations, and actually make an announcement that they will do something to help to compensate those 60,000 people who have already lost their pension rights?

Malcolm Wicks: The early part of the question was along the right lines, but I dealt with the rest of it earlier. The protection fund will protect, from April next year—we hope—more than 10 million scheme members. We voted for the Second Reading, but the Opposition—presumably not including the hon. Gentleman—voted against it. We are working hard on the terrible situation facing those already affected. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made his statement and the House will have to be patient a little longer.

Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab): I welcome the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last week, as did the employees of H. H. Robertson, who lost their pension fund in a disgraceful way. I appreciate the difficulties facing my hon. Friend the Minister, but has he made any progress in identifying the number of schemes affected? Is the figure of 60,000, which keeps being bandied about, accurate?

Malcolm Wicks: We estimate that the figure of 60,000 is about where it is, but we are trying to refine it. That is why we need to do more research. It is a frustrating
 
26 Apr 2004 : Column 624
 
position, but some can just talk about the issue. We have to explore the facts, do the research and talk through some of the issues with industry. We do not want to raise false expectations, and I emphasise that at this stage. However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will come to the House just as soon as we can.

Mr. David Willetts (Havant) (Con): All we are trying to do is find exactly how far round the U-turn Ministers have got. We want to know some simple facts about today's situation. May I remind the Minister of exactly what the Prime Minister said last week? He said that he was

"actively considering the position of people who . . . find that all the money that they have invested yields absolutely nothing."—[Official Report, 21 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 293.]

How many people does the Minister believe are in those circumstances?

Malcolm Wicks: I cannot add to my point that we are looking at all the facts. I have said that the House will just have to be a little more patient; I would have thought that that was very clear. We are not U-turning on this issue. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has always said that we are very sympathetic, but that there are no easy options. There are certainly no cost-free options, so we need to determine the facts. That is what we have been doing.

On the subject of U-turns, I was distressed, as were my colleagues, when the hon. Gentleman advised his colleagues to decline to give the Pensions Bill a Second Reading. I, for one, would welcome a U-turn on that.

Mr. Willetts: The Prime Minister carried out two U-turns last week and it is hard to judge which was the messier and most incompetently executed. All that we and the tens of thousands of people who are affected by the wind-up of their pension schemes want to know is how much assistance they will get and when they will get it. Why cannot the Minister answer?

Malcolm Wicks: The protection fund will provide security to at least 10 million scheme members. That is the crucial point. The hon. Gentleman wants to play politics with pensions; we want to look very seriously at the options and bring forward, if we can, pension protection. That is the difference between us.

---