Social Security

The hon. Lady obviously missed her vocation; she should have been a lawyer. [Interruption.] I am sorry, that is her sister—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle)—so it is obviously in the genes. However, as the hon. Member for Stroud said, people do not make the distinction that has been alluded to. Instead, they look at their total state pension income, and many of them have been taken by surprise. All the Minister need do is take into account what Age Concern and Help the Aged have to say, or listen to programmes such as "Money Box Live", in order to know the depth of the anger, frustration and disappointment felt by many pensioners on learning that they have been cynically cheated of part of the increase they had expected to receive. While I am reading quotes from Age Concern and Help the Aged, may I make another point, which is of relevance to the intervention from the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb)? Those organisations go on to say that""although the RPI was negative in September 2009 older people who contact us say they have not noticed any reductions in their everyday bills. This is unsurprising given a major contributing factor to the fall in the RPI was a reduction in mortgage interest payments which has no impact on the spending of most retired people."" I endorse that pertinent comment on the application of different inflation rates to pensions increases. Yet again, this year, like every other year, this Government ducked a decision on linking the state pension with earnings. As Mr. Andrew Harrop, head of policy at Age Concern and Help the Aged, said:""The Government has missed a golden opportunity to promise to restore the link between Basic State Pension and earnings by 2012. Sliding beyond this date will plunge an additional 70,000 pensioners into poverty, saving relatively little for the Government—an estimated £250 million a year after 2012.""