§ 3. Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset)What steps he is taking to ensure that all pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. [93747]
§ The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker)Research on barriers that pensioners face in claiming income support was published as recently as 15 October. Later this year, we will publish the evaluation of our pilots, which are aimed at encouraging pensioners to claim. That work is the most comprehensive analysis of pensioner take-up—or non-take-up, as the case may be—so far.
§ Mr. LetwinI am grateful to the Minister for that deeply illuminating reply. What explanation can he give pensioners who are claiming benefits today of the fact that their basic state pension is worth only a fraction of what it would have been worth had it been placed in a fund when they were making their national insurance contributions?
§ Mr. RookerThe hon. Gentleman asked me about ensuring that pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. It is a deep cause of concern that some pensioners are not receiving the benefits to which they are 688 entitled because of the barriers to claiming. Some of them believe that they still have to go to the social—to the office—to claim, for instance, income support or the minimum income guarantee. That is not the case. Claims can be made through a home visit or, in some parts of the country, over the telephone.
The hon. Gentleman has asked about the important issue of take-up of benefits before. An estimated 800,000 pensioners are not receiving the benefit to which they are entitled and for which the House has legislated, and we want to do everything we can to encourage take-up. There will be a Government-sponsored take-up campaign next spring.
§ Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead)I also congratulate my hon. Friend on his new post. Can he confirm that, generally speaking, the poorest pensioners are the oldest pensioners and that the national insurance fund is, to use a phrase he used a moment ago, awash with funds? Can he also confirm that the Government have records of pensioners aged over 80, because we pay them a few extra pennies a week, and that perhaps the most effective way of tackling pensioner poverty would be to give an increase of about £15 to those pensioners?
§ Mr. RookerI thank my right hon. Friend—and, indeed, the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Trend)—for their welcome. My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Indeed, of the estimated average number of pensioners not taking up their entitlement to income support—which varies between 530,000 to 870,000; one cannot be precise—230,000 are single females aged over 80, so there is a major problem. The figure for single males aged over 80 is 40,000.
When I walked into the Department of Social Security, I thought that, by twiddling the keys on my keyboard, I would be able to bring up the information necessary for finding those people in a detailed and systematic way, but the way that the information technology arrangements in the Department have been made in recent years prevented that from happening, which is why we need a Government-led take-up campaign.
On my right hon. Friend's further point, he will know better than I do that we cannot make a decision that could have consequences for 10, 20 or 30 years on one year's figures for the national insurance fund.