HC Deb 08 March 1999 vol 327 cc4-6
3. Mr. David Rendel (Newbury)

What steps he is taking to improve the financial position of the bereaved. [73040]

The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Stephen Timms)

The reforms in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill will provide specific help for the first time to widowers as well as widows. The new lump sum bereavement payment at £2,000 will be double the value of the existing widow's payment. Our aim is to concentrate help where and when it is most needed at the time immediately following bereavement and on those with children.

Mr. Rendel

I know that the Department received a letter from Captain Mongor pointing out that, as recently as September 1998, it wrote telling him that his widow would get the full additional pension even if he died after she was aged 55, something that will not happen until the year 2004. Given that the Government have rightly insisted on the private sector compensating people who have been mis-sold private pensions, what will the Government do to compensate people such as Captain Mongor—there may be millions of them—who have been given false information by the Department about what would happen to their widows and the additional pensions that their widows are due to get?

Mr. Timms

This is another measure inherited from the previous Government. Many people knew about the change and made plans accordingly, but it is the case that Department of Social Security leaflets were not updated until 1996. We are investigating why that was so. I can tell the House that we shall consider a claim for compensation from anyone who can establish that he or she received advice that did not reflect the change from April 2000 and, as a result, acted to their detriment. We shall be announcing further details shortly.

Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead)

One promise in "New Contract for Welfare", is that people can have greater confidence that they will get proper protection in return for the contributions they make. How does my hon. Friend square that with the proposals to strip out coverage for widows benefits, even though many people have paid 30 years' contributions for that cover?

Mr. Timms

The coverage is being extended to widowers. It will be a new contributory benefit for widowers. Those with children will continue to receive non-means-tested help until the youngest child for whom they are responsible ceases full-time education. The income support safety net will be in place for those who are older than 55 when the measures are introduced and who are widowed in the following five years. We are concentrating help—I think that my right hon. Friend will support this—on those who at the time need it most.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

Further to the highly pertinent inquiry from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), how does the Minister seriously expect to eradicate the something-for-nothing culture if he continues to pursue his reform of widows pensions in such a way as completely to undermine the contributory principle and to leave worse off no fewer than 250,000 women the length and breadth of the United Kingdom?

Mr. Timms

I have made the point that there is a new contributory benefit for widowers. There has been no such measure before; we are introducing one. It is time-limited, but not means-tested. All widows will receive non-means-tested benefit for six months to help during the transition, and those with children will continue to receive non-means-tested help until the youngest child ceases full-time education. We are modernising the system. Now, seven in 10 married women are in work. When the original system was introduced, the proportion was very much lower. We must change the system to reflect the changing times in which we live.

Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East)

Can my hon. Friend confirm that, for the first time, widows and widowers will get comprehensive assistance via the single gateway and special advisers to help them through the maze of the benefit system? Will my hon. Friend comment on a second issue: if it is so crucial to the Liberals that recently bereaved widows are looked after, why is there no provision for that in their Budget, which was issued this morning?

Mr. Timms

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I looked carefully through the documents issued this morning by the Liberal Democrats to see whether the matter was dealt with there. My hon. Friend is right—it is not. He is also right about the extra help that we are making available through the single work-focused gateway. That is an extremely important change, which will help many thousands of people. It is important for the House to know, too, that we are doubling the lump sum that will be payable to both widows and widowers on bereavement.