| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
22 Oct 2008 : Column 403W—continued
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the proportion of private sector employers who offered a pension to their employees in each year since 1997 for which figures are available. [226172]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is presented as follows:
| Percentage of firms with any pension provision | |
| Notes: 1. All figures are estimates taken from the Employers' Pension Provision Survey. 2005 is the latest year published. The coverage of the survey is private sector employers in Great Britain. 2. Stakeholder pensions were introduced in April 2001, and from October 2001 employers with five or more employees and no other pension provision were required to provide access to Stakeholder pensions. This is reflected in the increase in employer pension provision between 2000 and 2003. 3. Pension provision includes occupational schemes, Group Personal Pensions, Stakeholder Pensions (including schemes with no members and/or no contributions) and firms that contribute to Personal Pensions. Source: DWP Employers' Pension Provision Survey | |
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent steps the Government has taken to encourage employers to provide pensions for their staff. [227373]
Ms Rosie Winterton: A holding reply was sent on 20 October 2008.
Many employers already help their workers to provide for their retirement through workplace pensions. To encourage this and increase participation in workplace pension schemes, our reform programme includes measures that will remove some of the regulatory burdens on schemes and employers and from 2012 employers will have a statutory duty to enrol workers into workplace pension saving that meets minimum standards. We estimate these reforms will lead to between six million to nine million more people newly participating or saving more in workplace pensions.
Pensioners
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department has spent on (a) pension credit, (b) the second state pension, (c) the basic state pension, (d) widow's benefit, (e) free television licenses, (f) Christmas bonuses, (g) attendance allowance paid to pensioners and (h) carers allowance paid to pensioners expressed in current prices in each of the last 10 years. [226178]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The information is in the table.
Pensioners: Poverty
John Mason: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps the Government is taking to reduce pensioner poverty. [228456]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Tackling pensioner poverty continues to be one of this Government's key priorities.
The Government have introduced a number of measures to help older people out of poverty. In 1997, the poorest pensioners lived on around £69 a week, today pension credit ensures that no-one needs to live on less than £124.05 a week (£189.35 for a couple). We have successively raised the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit at least in line with earnings in every year since its introduction, and the value of the safety-net we provide for the poorest pensioners has increased by over a third in real terms since 1997.
We have made good progress in tackling pensioner poverty. Between 1998-99 and 2006-07 the number of pensioners in low income in the UK has fallen from 2.9 million to 2.1 million (measured by 60 per cent. of contemporary median income after housing costs.)
Our commitments in the Pensions Act 2007 to continue to uprate the pension credit standard minimum guarantee at least in line with earnings over the long term, and to reintroduce the earnings link to basic state pension from 2012, or by the end of the next Parliament, will help secure the gains we have made into the future.
We will continue to strive to ensure that older people are aware of, and take up their entitlements through initiatives such as: using sophisticated data matching to identify those who may be entitled to, but not currently receiving, benefits; home visits for vulnerable customers; local and national advertising and media campaigns; a simple and straight-forward claim process; and ever closer working with partner organisations.
In addition to pension credit we have increased winter fuel payments to £200 for households with someone aged 60-79, and £300 for those with someone aged 80 or over. We will be making an additional payment for winter 2008-09 of £50 for households with someone aged 60 to 79 and £100 for those with someone aged 80 or over. Since 1997, we have also introduced free eye-tests, free off-peak bus travel for pensioners and free television licences for over 75s.
Pensioners: Social Security Benefits
John Mason: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps the Government is taking to encourage the take up of benefits that remain unclaimed by pensioners each year. [228457]
Ms Rosie Winterton: Addressing pensioner poverty has been one of the Government's key priorities since 1997. The number of pensioners in relative low income has fallen from 2.9 million in 1998-99 to 2.1 million in 2006-07. Pensioners are less likely to be in poverty, as measured by relative incomes after housing costs are accounted for, than the population as a whole.
Maximising the take-up of benefits is crucial to tackling poverty levels. Since pension credit was introduced in 2003 the number of pensioners in relative low income has fallen by around 500,000.
We are making every effort to ensure that people are aware of and claim their entitlement.
We have simplified the claim process to make pension credit easier to claim. Customers no longer need to sign and return their pension credit claim forms, claims can be made entirely over the phone.
This autumn 2008, we are introducing a measure which will enable claims to housing benefit and council tax benefit made over the phone with pension credit to be forwarded directly to the local authority without the need for a signature—this is a significant simplification to the claim process and should benefit thousands of pensioners.
In February 2007, an additional question was introduced in the pension credit application process to identify relevant caring responsibilities in order to invite the customer, where appropriate, to claim carer's allowance using a new, shortened, claim pack specifically designed for people of pension age.
In addition we are using sophisticated data matching to identify eligible non- recipients, home visits for vulnerable customers, targeted local marketing and media campaigns and ever closer working with partner organisations.
Pensions
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the number of adults who were not members of any pension scheme in each year since 1997. [226176]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The following table gives a time series breakdown of working age adults who were not members of any active private pension scheme.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |