Social Security and Pensions — House of Commons, 2022-02-07
Topic: Labor
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Like all hon. Members, he highlighted the fact that the Government need to do more to deal with the cost of living crisis. It was characteristically optimistic of him to look forward to the Minister’s response; I have a funny feeling that we will not get much out of the Minister in that regard Of the two draft orders, I will concentrate first on the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order. It is relatively straightforward, on one level; it will ensure that those on contracted-out pensions get an uplift in their contributions made between 1988 and 1997. Effectively, that seems to be a formality that happens every year. The percentage increase is capped at 3%, which makes me think that we have to consider whether that 3% rate is valid now. What happens if inflation remains rampant? That needs to be considered In preparing for the debate, I was concerned to read that as part of the transition to the single-tier pension in 2016, the DWP estimated that 50,000 people would lose out with guaranteed minimum pensions. In 2019, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published a report stating that the DWP had not provided clear and accurate information that some pension holders could face negative long-term impacts on their pensions and their income. The Government responded in 2021 and developed a new factsheet. In developing that factsheet, how much discussion did they have with the PHSO and third-sector organisations? When will we see the review into its usage? As the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) pointed out, people are having difficulty accessing the factsheet. How many people have suffered negative consequences and what are the Government doing to assess that It is clear from the failings on the guaranteed minimum pension and the communications around that, the WASPI women and the botched communications with them, the pensions underpayments and the late payment of pensions once people reach state pension age that the pensions system has a long way to go before it is remotely close to being fit for purpose. With those observations, I will turn to pensions in general, in terms of the social security uprating. I know that the Minister will probably dismiss most contributions from the Opposition, but as others have said, he would do well to listen to the excellent contributions from the hon. Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). They should be a warning to the Government that more needs to be done UK pensions are the least generous in north-west Europe when compared with the average wage. That was confirmed by analysis undertaken by the House of Commons Library last year. When that is the case and when we have a cost of living crisis, it defies logic that the Tories think this is the time to break the triple lock guarantee on pensions and to break it in terms of the link with earnings As other Members have said, the CPI figure being applied is outdated, but I suspect it was also understated, considering the work done by Jack Monroe and the fact that the Office for National Statistics is saying that it will revise how it calculates CPI and inflation with regard to food. The 3.1% was probably an understatement at the time, and it has since been superseded.