Social Security

Well, that is an interesting intervention on two levels, is it not? First, it is an Alice in Wonderland intervention because the Minister seems to be trying to take credit for the fact that, as a result of Government policies, the bombed-out economy has meant that earnings have contracted not increased, thus, somehow the Government are being more generous to pensioners. She will not be allowed to get away with that. Secondly, is it not part of Labour party mythology that the wicked Tories broke the earnings link in 1980? Surely she would recognise that there have been any number of years between then and now when precisely what she said just now applied. She really cannot have it both ways. I am nervous about carrying on with my speech because I am afraid that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), will have a coronary if I do, given that she is laughing so hard at all this. Perhaps I can provide her with some sobering thoughts and statistics in a moment, but I return now to the matter of restoring the link. When do the Government propose to redeem that pledge? When will they give a straight answer to that question? I am sure that this debate will contain any number of worthy speeches by Government Back Benchers saying, "The wicked Tories broke the link in 1980." This Government have had 13 years to do something about it, but they have done absolutely nothing; all they have done is pass legislation that gives them the power to restore the link, but since then they have done nothing, So I am not going to take any lectures from Labour Members about restoring the link. As the hon. Member for Northavon mentioned my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), may I remind him of what our leader said at our party conference? On restoring the link, he said:""let's be the party that finally makes it happen."" Amen to that. May I also ask why there was no extra Christmas bonus this year? Perhaps someone could deal with that. The Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society will recall, as she participated in the debate, that only last week we discussed pensioner poverty. Even on the Government's figures, some 2.5 million pensioners are living in official poverty. Some 64 per cent. of pensioner households are dependent on state benefits for at least one half of their income—that is a staggering statistic. This Government's stewardship has been marked by, among other things, failed attempts to tackle the low take-up of means-tested benefits. Some 1.8 million people do not claim the pension credit to which they are entitled. Some £5.4 billion in benefits goes unclaimed by pensioners each year; the money just stays in the Chancellor's pocket, and that is tragic. Fuel poverty is bad and getting worse. Help the Aged estimates that up to 50,000 pensioners die needlessly because of the cold every year. Something else that was mentioned in last week's debate and is deserving of repetition is council tax benefit. Of all the means-tested benefits it has the worst record for claims by pensioners. A well-run campaign by the Royal British Legion, supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney—I believe that in the end it had cross-party support—aimed simply to change the name from "council tax benefit" to "council tax rebate". It did so because the evidence shows that only 55 to 61 per cent. of all pensioners who qualify for the benefit get round to making a claim. That means that about £1.5 billion of the benefit is left unclaimed every year. Research carried out by ComRes on behalf of the Royal British Legion has found that more than two third of the public believe that""some people are ashamed to claim Council Tax Benefit, even if they are entitled to it"." An Ipsos MORI survey conducted on behalf of the Legion found that 56 per cent. of respondents believed that eligible veterans would be more likely to claim council tax benefit if it were known as a rebate rather than a benefit. Eventually, a deafening chorus of calls for that change to be made came from organisations including the House of Lords and, I think, the Select Committee. As I say, it is a very small change that could put a great deal of extra cash into the pockets of needy pensioners—cash to which they are already entitled. Amendments for that purpose were tabled when the Welfare Reform Bill was considered in another place, but an amendment requiring the change to be made within a set time frame was withdrawn on the basis of assurances from the Minister that the Government would definitely make the change. In language that is unusually strong for the Royal British Legion, it states:""The Legion is extremely disappointed that, three months on, its good faith seems to have been taken for granted."" The Government are saying—the Minister said it last week and she will no doubt say it this week—that they are consulting local councils about the proposal because there are 381 of them, or something like it, and making this one-word change requires a huge IT effort on their part. I do not think that that is good enough. Let me come on to another issue: the delays in implementing personal accounts, or NEST—the National Employment Savings Trust—as we have to get used to calling them. A series of substantial delays have been announced in recent weeks and months, meaning that some of the Turner report's target audience—medium and low-income workers who do not have any provision from their workplace for their retirement—might have to wait until 2017 until they are fully enrolled and receiving all the contributions under that scheme. Lest anyone thinks that this is simply a matter of the time that it takes to implement the scheme, the Government eventually produced the figure that they were "saving" £2.4 billion as a result of the delays. That is £2.4 billion stripped out of pension savings in the future for low and middle-income earners in this country. Of course, that comes on top of the £100 billion-plus raid on pension funds—one of the first acts of this Government back in 1997—and the 100,000 defined benefit schemes that have been wound up since 1997. To coin a phrase, we simply cannot go on like this. Despite our criticisms and misgivings, I shall not be inviting my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against this order tonight. To do so would only deprive millions of vulnerable people—pensioners, people with disabilities, struggling families—of the extra help that they need and deserve. What sort of people would deny such help?