Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill

The Secretary of State will of course know that her figures on absolute poverty and relative poverty are disputed by the various stakeholders who work in this field. One of the issues that is concerning people with regard to poverty is the failure to uprate benefits this year along the lines of this year’s levels of inflation. She has rightly said that pensions and benefits such as disability benefits and universal credit—and, hopefully, the minimum income guarantee and pension credit—will rise in line with inflation this September. She is coming under some pressure on that now. Can she give us a guarantee that she will not resile from that position?