HC Deb 17 April 1989 vol 151 cc8-10
12. Mr. Pike

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received regarding those pensioners on income support who receive no benefit uprating in April.

Mr. Peter Lloyd

Various representations have been received on this subject.

Mr. Pike

Does the Minister not recognise that when he replies to cases taken up with him it is no good just saying in his letters that the claimant will find the answer "disappointing". For the second year running 1,700 of my constituents in Burnley and Pendle, who are paid by the Burnley DSS office, have received no benefit uprating, with the result that they are at least 10 per cent. worse off than they were two years ago. They do not find the position disappointing—they find it appalling. Is it not time that the Government did something for those people?

Mr. Lloyd

As the hon. Gentleman's question refers to pensioners on income support, let me tell him one thing that the Government are doing. From next October, we are raising the rate for couples aged 75 and over by £3.50 a week and the rate for the disabled by the same amount.

Mr. Charles Wardle

The income support premium for pensioners is most welcome but it applies to people aged 75 and over and does not, therefore, help many women who retired at 60 without an occupational pension before the state earnings-related pension scheme was introduced in 1978. That applies to women now aged between 71 and 74, many of whose incomes have not risen by 23 per cent., more than the rate of inflation. What does my hon. Friend intend to do to help them?

Mr. Lloyd

The changes that have been announced in benefits for those who are older are not necessarily the last of the improvements that we shall make to the system. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has promised to consider carefully all aspects of the system and no doubt when change is demonstrably needed it will be effected in good time.

Mr. Kirkwood

If change is contemplated, will the Minister seriously consider helping those elderly people to whom the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) referred, who have lost out and have no cash increases because transitional protection has been withdrawn? Is the machinery available to ensure that, if pensioners in that category can show, in good faith, that they have not been able to take account of the change—which some of them did not anticipate and of which they were ignorant—the Department can deliver cash help to them immediately?

Mr. Lloyd

The point about transitional protection being eroded is that it ensures that at no point will there be an actual cash loss or a surprise reduction such as that to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

Mr. Robin Cook

Was the Under-Secretary of State present last Tuesday when the Prime Minister said that she took credit for the fact that 98 per cent. of pensioners had received this year's uprating? Has he since had the courage to tell her that her figures were misleading? Will he take this opportunity to correct her and confirm that of those pensioners claiming income support, not 98 per cent., but fewer than 68 per cent., received the full uprating? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that it is to the credit of the Government that they have just cut the standard of living of a third of the poorest of all pensioners?

Mr. Lloyd

I was not present last week, but I understand my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to have said that 98 per cent. of pensioners would receive an increase—not necessarily the full increase, but an increase.

Mr. John Marshall

Would my hon. Friend care to remind the House what has happened to the standard of living of pensioners over the past 10 years and how that period compares with the previous five years?

Mr. Lloyd

The figures have often been raised at Question Time and my hon. Friend is right to draw the attention of the House to them once more. The total income of pensioners has risen by 23 per cent. since 1979. That includes SERPS, interest from savings, changes in benefits and the uprating of pensions. All those go to make up an increase of 23 per cent. in total income.