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Pension Credit
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Andrew Smith): I can now provide the latest monthly progress report on the take-up of pension credit, which became payable on 6 October 2003.
There are now 2.55 million pensioner households (3.09 million individuals) being paid pension credit, an increase of 52,000 households (66,000 individuals) during June. As at 30 June, there are 1.89 million households (2.28 million individuals) now receiving more money as a result of the introduction of pension credit, gaining by an average £15.57 a week. The average pension credit award is £41.99 per week.
There is plenty of time for pensioners to apply for pension credit. To ensure that people do not lose out, customers whose applications are successful in the period up to October 2004 will have their entitlement backdated to 6 October 2003 (or to the date of entitlement if this is later). The 2004 Budget statement confirmed that these arrangements will continue beyond
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October 2004. This means that anyone eligible applying after October 2004 will see their entitlement backdated by up to 12 months.
I am placing in the Library a report showing progress so far, including regional breakdowns of the number of pension credit households and numbers of pension credit awards in parliamentary constituencies in Great Britain. Copies of the report are also available for hon. Members in the Vote Office.
CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS
Complaints, Redress and Tribunals
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): My noble Friend Lord Filkin, the Under-Secretary of State has made the following written ministerial statement.
I am placing today in the Library of the House copies of the White Paper "Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals".
The Government are committed to improving access to administrative justice and justice in the workplace. Central and local government make millions of decisions each year about the rights and obligations of individuals and where things go wrong the public has the right to expect swift resolution. Similarly, employees are entitled to fair and decent standards in the workplace and some means of redress where these standards are breached. Tribunals deal with about a million cases a year. They are one means of redress, but not the only means.
This White Paper sets out the Government's vision for an improved and seamless system of dispute resolution. Sir Andrew Leggatt, in his report "Tribunals for Users", identified how tribunals can offer a better service for users. We have already announced our intention to accept the central theme of that report and create within the Department for Constitutional Affairs a single tribunal service, bringing together most central Government tribunals.
But this White Paper goes a step further. The basis for the new organisation will be the largest tribunal organisations administered by central Government, collectively responsible for more than 90 per cent. of tribunal cases. But the organisation we are creating will be more than just a federation of existing tribunals. This will be a new organisation and a new type of organisation. It will have a remit to innovate, looking at alternative methods of resolving disputes and stimulating improved decisionmaking so that the need for disputes does not arise. We intend that it will formally come into being in April 2006 but we are recruiting a chief executive now.
This approach to proportionate dispute resolution is the first manifestation of the Department's new strategy for helping users of the justice system resolve issues without recourse to formal hearings.
To help us deliver this new approach we also intend to create a more unified and cohesive corps of tribunal panel members better equipped to deliver the service users expect, while continuing to provide and enhance both their independence and their expertise. To provide
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the tribunal judiciary with leadership through this time of change and beyond into the new service we intend to create in statute the post of senior president of tribunals. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has asked Lord Justice Robert Carnwath to act as senior president designate in advance of legislation.
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We also believe that this new approach to administrative justice requires a new, more strategic organisation to oversee it so we plan to create an administrative justice council, based on the existing Council on Tribunals which currently supervises the work of tribunals in England, Scotland and Wales.