Social Security

As my hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, it is indeed disgraceful. I repeat that by 2050 the proportion will have risen to more than 70 per cent. if Government policy is continued. Pension credit is not being claimed by 1.7 million pensioners who are entitled to it, and the latest figures show that despite all the money that is being spent on advertising and the no doubt sterling efforts of the Pension Service, take-up does not seem to be shifting. Another question for the Minister, which relates directly to the orders, involves the confusion introduced by the Chancellor to the debate in relation to the pension credit link to earnings, or is it prices? We know that the pension credit is linked to earnings in uprating terms until 2008, but in a rather transparent attempt to torpedo Lord Turner’s proposals, even before they saw the light of day, the Chancellor told Lord Turner"““you should not assume that the current””" link of the pension credit to earnings"““will continue beyond 2008””." It would be helpful if the pensions Minister told us what his assumptions are. Before he says, ““Well, that’s for a future Budget and the Chancellor,”” I would have thought it incumbent on him as pensions Minister to tell us his Department’s long-term thinking. The Minister is rightly engaging in the rhetoric of long-termism and of patient solutions. Lots of hard work needs to be done to plan for the long term. On pensions, who could disagree with that? But, it would be useful to know about the short term, not so much the long term, as 2008 is not far away. We look forward to an answer to what is a fairly simple question. Many pensioners listening to the debate and those who hear about it subsequently will want an answer.