Social Security

Absolutely. My hon. Friend highlights one of the strongest examples of this issue—the case of someone whose SERPS or state second pension is, by the sound of it, pretty much equivalent to their basic state pension. The Government might say, "Well, it's only a pound or so a week, on average," but that becomes half a billion pounds that would have been given to pensioners if the other elements had been increased by 2.5 per cent., as the basic pension was. On hearing the 2.5 per cent. figure, many people will have thought that that is how much their pension would go up by. Like many hon. Members I do a lot of work on behalf of pensioners, and I often ask them to tell me what their basic pension is, because of particular schemes by which people can improve their basic pension, and almost without fail the figure that they give me is not their basic pension but their total pension. People simply do not make that mental distinction. The Minister—I hope that she will correct me if I am wrong—read something out from the pre-Budget report, which the public do not read, but she did not quote from the pre-Budget statement to the House, which is at least on the telly. If she can tell me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it quite clear in his statement that the additional parts of the pension would not rise in line with 2.5 per cent., I will happily give way to her—but she cannot. I think that we can only conclude that the Chancellor did not want the great British public to understand what he was doing—scooping half a billion pounds by not indexing the additional pension elements. The Minister gave a slightly geeky answer on this point—I do not use that word as a term of abuse—when she said that there would be implications for people who are contracted out. She will know, however, that for part of the state pension, the graduated retirement benefit—she nods knowingly—which many older pensioners, especially women, often receive, there is no contracting out issue. When she responds to the debate, as I hope she will, rather than letting it peter out, will she explain why that element was not indexed? It would not cost a significant amount and there would be no "unintended consequences," as she described them. I asked her that question in response to the statement before Christmas. She did not deal with it then; I hope she will do so now. There are strong arguments that people are being misled and that we should have had consistent indexation between the basic pension and additional pensions—[Interruption.] I am delighted to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) signed our early-day motion in support of the position I am advancing.