Welfare Reform Bill

We have all agreed that this is a framework Bill, but it occurs to me now that that is speaking rather loosely. To a great extent, it is a framework set above a series of experiments which are in themselves a sort of framework. This supra-framework, for the want of a better expression, allows pilots to be conducted to see if particular threads in the Bill will work in practice. It is they which will finalise the schemes to be rolled out nationwide in due course. The final schemes could be very different from the original pilots. We just do not know, any of us, whether one pilot in respect of any particular thread of the Bill will be enough or whether a second or even a third, fourth or fifth will be necessary. It goes without saying that the longer a pilot scheme is to continue, the more delayed the final countrywide rollout will be. No one can deny that. It is particularly relevant to the next group of amendments, to which I shall speak in due course. This amendment concerns state pension credit. Clause 23 allows pilots to be run to establish whether the particular scheme in that pilot will increase the uptake of state pension credit. The objective of state pension credit is to bring the income of pensioners with little or no extra income beyond the state pension of £95.25 for a single person per week, an extra £57.05 for a dependent adult up to a minimum income of £130 for a single person and £198.45 for a couple. It could perhaps be described as a minimum wage for pensioners. The catch-all way of achieving this objective would be to raise the basic state pension to the level of this minimum wage. No Government could possibly contemplate that because of the expense, so this Government invented pension credit. The problem is that by no means all the people who are entitled to it claim it. I understand that the Treasury never thought that it would be fully utilised and I am sure that the Minister will tell us the number of people who should be claiming it and are not. Not surprisingly, the Official Opposition, particularly in another place, have waxed lyrical about this failing of the Government. This is the whole narrative for the clause, which has the effect of introducing a pilot scheme enabling HMRC to pay pension credit with no claim being made. The Government are 100 per cent correct to pilot this scheme, so that we can all see what effect, if any, it has—not on the take-up, which will inevitably rise—but on the living standards of pensioners. My suggestion—I would not put it any higher than that—is that 12 months for such a scheme is not long enough to have a proper evaluation and then roll out this no-claim proposal to become the norm across the country. Given, in particular, that two-year pilots are now considered to be the right length of time for most pilots, why have the Government chosen the minimum possible time of only one year for this one? I beg to move.