My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 4, to which my name is attached, I also wish to support Amendment 3, which addresses similar issues. The aim is to understand better the impact of this Act on pensioner poverty.
According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, pensioner poverty has been decreasing across the UK. Given the existence of the triple lock, that should not be a surprise. Indeed, it shows the success of the triple-lock policy since 2010 in reducing pensioner poverty generally. That is something of which my party should be proud.
Yet, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, pension credit is still needed by large numbers of individual pensioners, and we know from a Question asked yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that the campaign to encourage take-up of pension credit this year seems not to have achieved very much.
As we have heard, too many people who would qualify for pension credit still do not claim it. One reason could be clawback. I think a main reason is lack of face-to-face support to assist individuals for whom digital and telephone access is a barrier. I hope the Minister will look carefully at this problem, because if the Government really want to reduce pensioner poverty, they have to will the means of doing that. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said, we need a new campaign.
Our Amendment 4 also identifies a considerable pensions gap between men and women and calls for a specific review of the impact of the provisions of the Bill on women. I hope the Minister can agree to that.
We said at Second Reading that the Bill is primarily a technical Bill. But the amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Janke adds an important dimension, which is that any further decisions on pensions uprating should be brought forward by the Government in the light of their findings from the review; in other words, we need the clear, evidence-based decision-making that Amendment 4 would provide.