Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners — House of Commons, 2022-03-21
Topic: Labor
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): Yes, I do. My right hon. Friend, who was a first-class Pensions Minister and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will remember being at the Government Dispatch Box when shadow Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions from the Tory party criticised pension credit and opposed the minimum income guarantee, saying that it was an extension of means-testing and undermined the universal basic state pension. Now, today, they are using pension credit to justify a £388 real-terms cut in the value of the basic state pension. I hope that the very sensible recommendation by my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, is taken up by the Secretary of State, and that she responds to him when she speaks Of course, Ministers should be moving heaven and earth to drive up take-up, but the Pensions Minister revealed earlier this afternoon that, instead, we have a letter writing campaign. Writing to local newspapers—that is his plan to drive up uptake of pension credit. When pensioners cannot afford their heating bills and cannot afford to eat—when pensioners cannot afford the basic necessities of life—rather than taking action, all he does is write to local newspapers. What is he doing? Is he expecting pensioners to burn the papers to keep themselves warm? I am told he has written to the Leicester Mercury. Well, I have been looking at his local paper, the Hexham Courant. I cannot actually see his letter in it, but I can see that it is warning that "Thousands in the North East to miss out on automatic £150 rebate…MORE than 320,000 households across the North-East will not automatically receive a £150 council tax rebate…and 40,000 in Northumberland" Many of them will be pensioners. May I suggest that he sorts out his own backyard before gracing the pages of my paper, the Leicester Mercury There is one other area where I think the Minister needs to show greater urgency in supporting the United Kingdom’s pensioners and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State responded in detail to the points I have made. She will know that the underpayment of the basic state pension to around 135,000 pensioners, the vast majority of whom are women, has been a scandal. I pay tribute to the former Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister, Sir Steve Webb, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who have all shone a light on that The Department has allocated £1 billion and estimates that approximately 118,000 pensioners will be traced and could receive around £8,900 by the time the payments are made. So far, so good. But the last time Ministers provided updated figures, in autumn, they had paid out just £60 million to just under 10,000 people, so £900 million is outstanding. When we are in a cost of living crisis, should not the Department be showing greater urgency? When will the other £900 million be paid? The Secretary of State will know that there are stories of the DWP helpline giving inaccurate information and false assurances, forcing pensioners to keep living on less. There is no information available as far as I can see on how lump sums will impact on capital limits and the consequent impact on other entitlements, such as to social care. Divorced women have been excluded from the whole exercise on the basis that it does not think there are enough errors to be worth doing, even though there are cases of divorced women where errors have been made and it has had to pay out thousands in back payments.