Commons Sitting of 7 February 2000

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SECURITY
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  SOCIAL SECURITY

    Housing Benefit
    Mr. Andrew Stunell: If he will make a statement on his plans to reform the housing benefit system. [107185]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): We are committed to reform housing benefit and will publish a Green Paper this year. In the meantime, we are making improvements to the way in which it is administered.
    Mr. Stunell: The Secretary of State must be aware of the concern at the Government's delay in producing their proposals. Does he accept that the housing benefit system is seen as being in disrepute? In Stockport, there is a particularly grave problem with private tenants who are the victims of oppression by the Greater Manchester rent officer service. What assurance can the right
    2
    hon. Gentleman give that, when and if we get the new system, there will be an end to the economic cleansing of private tenants from my constituency?
    Mr. Darling: I am aware of the problems in Stockport which have resulted in assessments being made by the rent officers. I understand that the hon. Gentleman and the three other Members of Parliament who represent Stockport are going to see the local rent officers to discuss the matter, so I do not propose to say anything further on that matter.
    The 400 or so tenants who have had their housing benefit reduced are covered by the exceptional hardship payments which are available. The amount paid out by the hon. Gentleman's local authority is actually less than the amount that the Government have provided for, so those people are well covered.
    The housing Green Paper will be published this year and will cover far more than housing benefit, as financial support for housing is only one part of the problem. We will address a number of the problems that the hon. Gentleman and others have raised and, at that stage, we will have a full and proper debate.
    Mr. Tony McWalter: When reforming the housing benefit system, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that some pensioners have what might be called offspring-engendered poverty, in that they do not get the contribution from their grown-up so-called children that they might otherwise get? That creates difficulties for some of them, who must meet substantial housing costs out of very low incomes.
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is referring to the non-dependant deductions, which have been a feature of housing benefit for many years. If we did not take into account sums that someone living in a house could reasonably pay towards their upkeep, everybody else would have to subsidise that house. That is not right, as a

    3
    matter of principle. People who live in a house and who have their own income ought to make a contribution towards the running costs of that house.
    Mr. Eric Pickles: The Secretary of State was not very forthcoming about when the Green Paper is due—he was making similar promises this time last year. Will he confirm that his reforms have now run into the sand with a dispute between his and other Departments? Will he confirm that the biggest obstacle facing him is the £13 billion investment by housing associations, which borrowed that money on the basis of the level of benefit payments? Will any scheme compensate housing associations for that? Is he still serious about reforming housing benefit, or will the next Budget tinker with the poverty trap through the working families tax credit, which will leave 3 million out of 4.5 million housing benefit claimants unaffected?
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on just about every point that he raises. The housing Green Paper will be published this year and will cover not just housing benefit, but other housing matters. He might want to reflect that, during the 18 years that they were in power, the Conservative Government did nothing about many of the problems with housing benefit.

    Pensioners
    Mr. Nigel Waterson: If he will make a statement on the Government's policies towards pensioners. [107187]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): Our objective is to make sure that retirement is a time to look forward to. We are doing more to help today's pensioners. We are reforming pension provision for the future to make sure that people retire with decent pensions. As a result of our policies, older and poorer pensioners are £500 a year better off than they would have been but for the change of Government.
    Mr. Waterson: Why should pensioners look forward to retirement as a result of the Government's policies? The Government have ripped off £5 billion from pension funds and abolished the married couples allowance, tax relief on private medical care, widows bereavement benefit and many other benefits affecting older people. On top of that, they are proposing to introduce a system in which there will be two classes of pensioner. There will be a disincentive to save at one end of the scale, and real unfairness for those who have saved during their working lives at the other.
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman will recall that we now have the lowest rates of corporation tax that this country has seen, allowing companies to decide whether they want to reinvest their money or pay it out in dividends. He will no doubt have seen reports suggesting that many pension funds are beginning to benefit not just from our advance corporation tax changes, but because of the benign economic conditions that have been a feature of this Government.
    The hon. Gentleman mentioned the bereavement benefit changes. The status quo could not be sustained, because it was discriminatory: a man who lost his wife
    4
    and was left with young children to bring up was not being helped. We have now arranged for help to go to either men or women when they lose their spouses.
    I think that the hon. Gentleman's key objection is to the minimum income guarantee. I see that he is nodding vigorously. One and a half million pensioners are now getting more help, thanks to the Government: people who were not able to save enough of a pension during their working life, often because they were employed on very low wages or were in and out of employment.
    It is clear that we believe that we should help Britain's poorest pensioners—the ones who lost out in the past 20 years—and it is equally clear that the Tories would take that money away; unless, of course, another U-turn is about to be announced at the Dispatch Box.
    Mr. John Cryer: I appreciate what my right hon. Friend says about the minimum income guarantee, but is he genuinely happy with the 75p increase in the state pension?
    Mr. Darling: I have explained on many occasions that the Government's pensions policy is geared towards providing the most help to the poorest pensioners who lost out in the past 20 years. Over those years, the richest pensioners did very well compared with the others, whereas the poorest lost out very badly. If we gave an across-the-board increase to all pensioners, those who were better off would not notice the amount and those at the lower end of the income scale would get no increase whatever because they would lose it pound for pound in benefit.
    That is why we are absolutely right to target most of our efforts on helping the poorest pensioners; but I remind my hon. Friend that the winter fuel payment, increased to £100, goes to all pensioners; free television licences, from this autumn, go to all pensioners over 75; and we have taken out of tax 200,000 pensioners who used to pay tax on their savings.
    Mr. Steve Webb: I agree with the Secretary of State. I agree with his statement in the House 12 months ago that pensioners are rightly angry when they save for a lifetime and then cannot get means-tested benefits. I agree with him in his statement of 12 months ago, when he said:
    "That reform is long overdue."—[Official Report, 28 January 1999; Vol. 324, c. 486.]
    Given that it was long overdue 12 months ago, why has he done absolutely nothing on capital limits since then?
    Mr. Darling: I have explained to the hon. Gentleman on countless occasions that the Government said in the Green Paper that the capital limits needed to be considered. I am glad that he agrees with everything that I said previously, because I notice that the Liberal Democrats' manifesto says that it is their policy that the basic state pension should be increased in line with prices and that there should be extra earnings-linked help for the poorest pensioners, and that is precisely what we are doing.
    Mr. Hilary Benn: Given what my right hon. Friend has just said about the minimum income guarantee, and rightly so, when does he expect to be in a

    5
    position to launch a publicity campaign to ensure that all the pensioners who are entitled to it are able to claim and receive it?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend asks a very good question, the answer to which is very soon indeed. I shall make an announcement in the not-too-distant future setting out how we intend to ensure that those pensioners who qualify for the minimum income guarantee get it.
    Mr. David Willetts: The trouble is that, whatever else the minimum income guarantee may be, it is not a guarantee of a minimum income to pensioners. A pensioner with savings of more than £8,000 in a year is not entitled to any help, even though her income could well be way below the supposed minimum income guarantee level. It is a matter not only of pensioners not claiming the benefits to which they are entitled, but of the old income support rules meaning that pensioners with incomes way below the minimum income guarantee level are simply not entitled to receive it. The Secretary of State should either change the name of his policy so that it is not so misleading, or change the policy to do something to help pensioners with modest savings.
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman's argument would have more force if he had done something about the capital limits when his party was in power, because they remained unchanged for many, many years. We have said that we will consider that, and we will. His policy is not to give more help to those receiving the minimum income guarantee but to take that guarantee away, so 1.5 million pensioners would lose money, not gain it. People should remember that when they listen to what the Conservatives have to say on pensions.

    Pensions
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: What steps he is taking to improve the public's knowledge of pensions and saving for retirement. [107188]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): We shall be introducing new pension forecasts giving both state and private pension details. For the first time, individuals who work will have a clear statement of their current and projected pension rights. We hope to be able to provide that information for everyone by 2002, and this year it has been piloted in several large companies.
    We have already greatly improved the general pension information available with award-winning pension leaflets, based on the "Monopoly" game, which are used at exhibitions and in advertisements in the press. We shall continue to do all we can to improve people's knowledge of pensions and to encourage individuals to make adequate provision for their retirement.
    Mr. Cunningham: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that young people, who are often unaware that it is important for them to join a pension scheme, do join a pension scheme? What will he do to encourage them to do
    6
    so? Is he aware that many old-age pensioners are suffering because of the mis-selling of endowment policies under the previous Government?
    Mr. Rooker: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The whole House will agree that it is not easy to encourage young people to think about pensions. However, when from 2002 everybody gets an annual statement of their pension entitlements—similar to a P60—and they see what is being accrued in their state, company, occupational or stakeholder pension, they will start to ask questions in a way that they did not before. It is likely that more young people will start to make better provision for their pension arrangements.
    Mr. Simon Burns: Obviously, the more information people have about their pensions, the better. In that context, all pensioners know that they will get a measly 75p increase in April. How does that square with the fact that the council tax in Chelmsford will increase by £1.31 a week, which will mean a 56p a week loss for pensioners before taking into account the increase in the rate of inflation since September, the increase in rents way above the rate of inflation and other income problems that pensioners face? The Chancellor seems to have about £7 billion to £8 billion spare next year, so why cannot the pensioners have a decent increase and share in the nation's prosperity?
    Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman ignores the fact that the 75p increase is tied to someone living on the basic state pension of £66.75. Average pensioner net incomes in 1997–98 for single people were £132, and for couples £252. To compare the 75p increase with the council tax increase is totally and utterly misleading.
    Mr. Andrew Miller: As well as improving the public's knowledge of pensions, will my right hon. Friend ensure that pension advisers who advise members of the public and firms are also brought up to speed? Will he carefully consider the ombudsman's decisions on the collapse of H. H. Robertson's, a firm in my constituency, when they are published and ensure that lessons about the weaknesses in the current legislation are learned and that pension advisers take their share of responsibility for the collapse?
    Mr. Rooker: I do not know the particular circumstances of that firm, but any report from the pensions ombudsman that highlights a loophole in the protection of pensioners, future and present, will be examined seriously by the Government.
    Mr. Archy Kirkwood: Many people will get a shock when they receive their personal statements and realise what they will be entitled to when they retire. Will the Minister use the opportunity afforded by the statements to give an up-to-date running total of what is in the national insurance fund? Will he confirm that, if the statements were sent out this week, the recipients would learn that the fund had a £16,000 million surplus, but many of them will receive an increase of only 75p in April?
    Mr. Rooker: If we did that, we would have to send out a volume the size of a telephone directory explaining that

    7
    the position is not as simple as that—as the hon. Gentleman well knows. The national insurance fund can be in surplus at times because its level depends on the number of people who claim contributory benefits. The hon. Gentleman, in his position as Chairman of the Social Security Committee, should not give such misleading information in his questions.
    Mrs. Jacqui Lait: Will the Minister confirm that the information that he has just promised for 2002 was indeed the information that the Green Paper on pensions promised for April 1999? Will he confirm that the delay is because of the decision about widows' inheritance of the state earnings-related pension scheme? Are we to conclude that there will not be a decision until about 2002, or can we expect it to be earlier?
    Mr. Rooker: I think that the hon. Lady has misunderstood what I said. We expect to get the pension forecasting service to everybody in the system up and running by 2002, perhaps even by late 2001. It has been piloted with tens of thousands of employees in seven or eight large companies this year. Indeed, a pilot of the pilot has already started. This scheme is new—it has never before been attempted to combine state and private pension forecasts for everyone on an annual basis.

    New Deal (Lone Parents)
    Mr. Chris Pond: What is his estimate of the total savings to date to his Department as a result of the new deal for lone parents; and what forecasts he has made of future savings. [107189]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The independent evaluation of the programme's prototype phase is due to be published at the end of this month and will include a full cost-benefit analysis. The full national programme is being evaluated separately. It, too, will include a cost-benefit analysis and will be available in spring 2002.
    Mr. Pond: I thank the Minister for that response and look forward to the results of the full evaluation. Is she aware that among the 100,000 lone parents who have benefited from the new deal so far is a young woman in my constituency who, after many years of unemployment, has gained so much in terms of skills and confidence that she is now working at Gravesend jobcentre? The help that the new deal has given her and so many other lone parents is a major factor in helping the Government to fulfil their commitment to halving child poverty in 10 years.
    The Minister will not be hurt if I say that the majority of lone parents would love to sever their relationship with her Department. However, is she aware that many are fearful that, if they make the transition from social security into work, there will be a dangerous gap between the receipt of benefits and the arrival of the first pay packet? Can she give any reassurance to those lone parents considering making that transition?
    Angela Eagle: My hon. Friend is right to point to the successes of the new deal for lone parents. On his specific question, the Government have introduced a lone parents benefit run-on from last October. That means that all lone parents moving off benefits into jobs will receive an extra
    8
    two weeks' income support or jobseeker's allowance, depending on what they were claiming before moving into work. There is also the four-week housing benefit run-on which continues to be paid for the month after lone parents come off benefits. We hope that together those measures will tide lone parents over that difficult gap.
    Miss Anne McIntosh: Can the Minister confirm that 100,000 people only attended interview; they were not taken off the dependency list? Can she also confirm that there remain 470,000 single parents with children over five who would be eligible? What measures is her Department taking to encourage those people to break the dependency link? They would love to get off benefits and into a stable job, but her Department is singularly failing to encourage them to do so.
    Angela Eagle: First, at least we have a new deal for lone parents and are trying to help them off benefit; the previous Government did nothing but abuse them. I can say that 32,710 lone parents are now in jobs who would not have been in jobs before, and 10,630 are in further education and training. This is difficult: 30 per cent. of lone parents have no qualifications, and 55 per cent. have qualifications under national vocational qualification level 2. Some, perhaps, are not job-ready, and we are doing our best with these programmes to prepare them for the labour market so that they and their children can look forward to a lifetime off benefits rather than the lifetime on benefits that the previous Government left them with.

    Winter Fuel Payments
    Mr. David Winnick: If he will make it his policy to provide winter fuel payments for pensioners on a permanent basis. [107191]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in November 1999 that winter fuel payments would be made every year from now on. Additionally, in December, following a European Court of Justice judgment, we announced our intention to extend the scheme to those aged 60 and over, whether or not they are pensioners.
    Mr. Winnick: That is very good news on both counts. Has the £100 winter fuel payment not been of tremendous help to many pensioners, particularly those on low incomes? Does my right hon. Friend recall that, before 1997, no extra money was given unless the weather was freezing for seven consecutive days? Does he agree that that system, which the Conservative Government defended at every opportunity, was both inadequate and farcical? Will the Opposition perform a U-turn by accepting winter fuel payments if they return to office?
    Mr. Rooker: The exceptional cold weather payment system still applies but the greenhouse effect means that it does not often come into use. The winter fuel payment to pensioner households is all the more valuable for that. We did not, so far as I am aware, inherit any plan or budget from the previous Government for the payment of that benefit.
    Mr. Edward Leigh: Will it help pensioners to pay for their fuel or anything else this winter

    9
    if they are forced to take out annuities—currently at an all-time low—at 75? They are being forced into poverty and not receiving their just deserts because the Government are being totally inflexible.
    Mr. Rooker: This is not the time for a debate on annuities, but one must ask what pensioners who complain that they are being forced to buy annuities at 75 had lived on until then. I accept that annuities are a serious issue, but we must not run away with the idea that it affects the poorest people in this country. Those involved have managed to avoid taking out an annuity until they reached 75, and one must ask what they were living on.

    Housing Benefit
    Dr. Brian Iddon: If he will make a statement on the housing benefit verification framework. [107192]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The verification framework is a key part of our overall strategy to root out fraud and error in housing benefit. The framework is a good practice guide that forms a platform for secure and accurate administration by defining the evidence that should be gathered to support a claim for housing benefit or council tax benefit. It also defines the frequency of subsequent checks during the life of a claim. As of 28 January, 226 local authorities had received funding to implement the framework.
    Dr. Iddon: Various housing organisations in Bolton have expressed concern about how the housing benefit verification framework is operating. For the record, will my hon. Friend assure us that no one will be denied housing benefit—hence accommodation—because he or she cannot produce two bona fide forms of identification? Will she assure us that benefit will not be stopped after a housing officer has attempted a second visit, having failed to make contact on the first, particularly when it occurs as early as 7.30 am to 8.30 am?
    Angela Eagle: The idea behind the verification framework is that it will secure the gateway to benefit, which was too lax in the past. That involves proof of identity. However, we have improved the framework in the light of its live operation, not by reducing security but by ensuring that we fit in with people's life styles. For example, hostel dwellers do not often have two proofs of identification, and we have made adjustments accordingly. However, we do not want to make housing benefit security any worse, and the verification framework is a big improvement. We want all local authorities to put it into effect.
    Sir Sydney Chapman: Last year, there were nearly 250,000 cases of housing benefit fraud, but only 700 successful prosecutions. Given those figures nearly three years after the Government came to office, how can the hon. Lady continue to say that Ministers will be tough on housing benefit fraud?
    Angela Eagle: We inherited a difficult system from the Conservative Government who fragmented the administration of housing benefit to 409 different local
    10
    authorities with which we must co-operate. We realised that there was a problem with prosecution, and we have launched prosecution pilots in which we lend departmental lawyers to local authorities in order to pursue cases. We are tightening up.
    Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours: My hon. Friend is aware that I have been doing some work on reform of the housing benefit system and on the relationship between rents paid and taxes paid by landlords. Will she tell me how that work is proceeding in the Department?
    Angela Eagle: As always, my hon. Friend is most ingenious and has come up with some very interesting ideas. I assure him that the Department is taking a close look at them.
    Mr. Nigel Evans: Is the Minister aware of a case in which a person was caught claiming for 43 children and 11 houses? He was an illegal immigrant and was jailed for three and a half years. Will she stress to people who are cheating the system that they cheat not only the Government but those people who could also be receiving benefits, if the system were not being fleeced as it is? As there are a reported 70,000 asylum seekers flooding into the country, will she reassure the country that, whereas the Home Office seems to have lost its grip on those people, the Department of Social Security will ensure that they are not fleecing the system?
    Angela Eagle: As always in this matter, the hon. Gentleman makes a disgraceful contribution. I assure him that we take fraud extremely seriously. He proves that by citing a case that was prosecuted successfully and in which the person was jailed. Prosecutions are going up. We shall not tolerate fraud in the social security system; we work night and day to ensure that we minimise successful fraud.
    Mr. Peter L. Pike: What representations he has received regarding time taken in dealing with housing benefit claims. [107193]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The Department regularly receives correspondence about local authority administration of housing benefit. Working with local authorities, we aim to transform the delivery of housing benefit so that it is faster, more accurate and more secure against fraud and error.
    Mr. Pike: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. We acknowledge the actions that have already been taken. However, does she agree that the housing benefit system remains complex and that, although a verification process is needed, many councils are struggling with the system and many people have to wait far too long? That is extremely worrying, especially for elderly people who have never been in debt and who think that they are in debt although in fact they are not. Will she ensure that councils are able to deal with those claims speedily, thus removing such anxieties?
    Angela Eagle: We always have to find a balance between securing the gateways to the benefit and speed. Some local authorities experienced a decline in their

    11
    ability to process housing benefit forms when they adopted the verification process. However, because of the co-operation that we are receiving over live running, I assure my hon. Friend that we aim to get right the balance between accuracy and speed.
    Mr. Desmond Swayne: Given the critical importance of that benefit, the figures cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir S. Chapman) and the importance that the Government attach to the benefit, why have no proposals for its reform been put to the House during the lifetime of this Government? When can we expect them?
    Angela Eagle: We have introduced many reforms to the housing benefit system. For example, we set up the benefit fraud inspectorate, which is currently examining every local authority among the top 30 housing benefit spenders. We have also introduced changes to weekly benefit savings to encourage prosecutions. Almost all local authorities have remote-access terminals, which give access to Benefit Agency records so that they can make cross-checks. We are introducing the electronic transfer of data between the BA and local authorities, beginning this month. We have set up a pilot to examine the single gateway to the benefit system. We have done much; the hon. Gentleman will have to wait a little longer for the Green Paper.

    Benefits Payment
    Mr. Phil Hope: If he will make a statement on the impact upon people in rural areas of proposals to computerise the benefits payment system. [107195]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): About half of new pensioners and more than half the people in receipt of child benefit prefer to have their benefits paid into their bank accounts. However, for some people, especially in rural areas, receiving their money in cash at the post office is very important, and we want that choice to remain. So, even after the move to paying benefits directly into bank accounts, from 2003, people in rural areas will still be able to collect their cash at the local post office if they want to do so.
    Mr. Hope: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. People who live in east Northamptonshire, a rural part of my constituency, have been greatly concerned about press reports that were not the same as his reply. Will he assure me that the Government have joined-up thinking in this matter and that they recognise the vital social, as well as commercial, functions of post offices? Will he further assure me that in future we shall see a halt to the decline of services in rural areas that began under the Tories, and that there will be a real rural revival?
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right—doing nothing and sticking with the present system would be an absolute disaster for post offices, because more and more of those who are coming into the benefit system, especially pensioners and people receiving child benefit, are asking to have their money paid direct into a bank or building society account. That is their right, and there is nothing that the Government can or should do about that.
    12
    We have also ensured that, for the first time, the Post Office has the capability to compete with the banks—it can now get access to the money necessary to enable it to pay out cash to its customers. When we came to office, the Post Office could not do so because the necessary investment had not been made. The previous Government had no intention of doing anything about it, and instead were going to privatise the entire post office network.
    We are ensuring that people will have a choice after 2003, and that the Post Office can compete with banks in a way that simply is not possible at the moment.
    Mr. Peter Lilley: Will the Secretary of State confirm that he received from officials the same advice that I received about the impact of moving to compulsory ACT—compulsory payment of benefits through the banks—namely, that it would lead to the collapse of the post office network across the country, that the only way to prevent that collapse would be to introduce a subsidy, that such a subsidy would absorb a large part of the savings that it was hoped to make in the first place, and that the net effect would be a minimum saving but maximum hardship for old, disabled and young people, and that communities would be destroyed? Will he think again about this disastrous policy?
    Mr. Darling: The right hon. Gentleman was a member of a Conservative Government—and he belonged to the right-wing, doctrinaire part of that Government—who wanted to sell off the whole of the post office network, which would have put many post offices at risk—so he has no credibility as a defender of the Post Office.
    I do not know what advice the right hon. Gentleman was given because, of course, we do not see the advice given to previous Administrations. However, he must have been told that the present system—under which the cost of paying a benefit by girocheque is some 79p an item, whereas the cost of paying it direct into a bank account is less than 1p—is unsustainable. He must also have been told that making payments by means of order books and giros is extremely expensive because of the amount of money lost through fraud, and that therefore that is also unsustainable. The only way to ensure that the post office network survives is to ensure that it gets investment—something that he opposed when he was a member of the Conservative Government who wanted to sell it off.
    We are giving the Post Office the additional investment necessary to ensure that people have a choice about whether they receive their benefit in cash at a post office or through a bank or building society. The alternative to what we are doing is to maintain a system whereby we continue to pay benefits using order books that are by and large unchanged since the ration books of the second world war. That is clearly unsustainable and nonsensical.
    Mr. Bob Blizzard: Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning certain newspapers and certain Opposition politicians who, by their scaremongering, are serving only to undermine public confidence in sub-post offices, in spite of the fact that the Government and my right hon. Friend today have clearly stated that cash benefits will still be available at post offices? Does he agree that comments to the contrary serve only to frighten elderly people, and that those who

    13
    are calling for the abandonment of ACT would compel the 50 per cent. of people who have chosen ACT to return to the ration book type of payment?
    Mr. Darling: The point that those who differ with us on our policy should remember is that more and more people—whether we like it or not—are asking to have their benefits paid into their bank accounts. Therefore, if we did nothing, the post office network would suffer, and anyone who believes that that is a sensible policy needs his head looking at.
    The right thing to do is to ensure that people have a choice, because we believe in choice. People should be allowed to choose where they receive their benefit or pension. However, we also need to ensure that the necessary investment is made in the Post Office. That did not happen, and the Post Office paid a heavy price for the doctrinaire opposition to addition investment shown by the Conservative privatisers who now sit on the Opposition Benches.
    Mr. Alasdair Morgan: Will the Secretary of State guarantee that, in any departmental publicity leaflets, equal emphasis will be given to both choices, including the post office choice, and that the option to retain payments through a post office will not be buried away in the small print of the leaflets?
    Mr. Darling: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. A poster campaign is being mounted jointly by the Benefits Agency and the Post Office. Posters and leaflets explaining the new system should appear in every post office throughout the land to give people the reassurance that they will have a choice as to whether they receive their money through the post office or their bank or building society.
    Mr. Lawrie Quinn: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the end of last week in which he pointed out that 3,000 extra cashpoint machines will be available in rural post offices? Many people will want to receive their benefits through the new system and, despite the scaremongering of Conservative Members, that will add to the renaissance of services in rural areas.
    Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend is right. The Post Office already has an alliance with, I think, three banks and offers banking facilities as a result of that. I fail to understand the policy of the Conservative party. I know that it is conservative in every sense of the word, but its recipe is to do absolutely nothing and to stick with a system that is not sustainable. That is nonsensical and it would also cost the DSS substantial sums in administrative costs and in money lost through fraud and error. Surely nobody in their right mind could defend that, but let us hear what the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) has to say.
    Mr. Tim Boswell: I begin by assuring the Secretary of State that I feel very much in my right mind. I am sure that he would wish to join me in acknowledging that the effects of rural transport difficulties are compounded for those who are elderly or who have disability problems. While we are discussing states of
    14
    mind, it seems that the right hon. Gentleman suffers from a degree of selective amnesia. He seems to be unaware that the sub-post office network is already privatised and that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who spoke so eloquently a moment ago, had initiated a project for the automation of the benefits payments system that would have been highly beneficial.
    Although the Secretary of State has given assurances, does he not accept that, in the form that he has given them, they are merely bland, imprecise and uncosted? Does he not understand that they will cut very thin ice with an elderly or disabled person who wishes to go to his or her local sub-post office, finds that its business has become uneconomic because of the significant loss of benefit payments that will result from the changes that the Secretary of State has initiated, and that it has simply shut its doors—so that that person has nowhere to go?
    Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt reflect on the fact that rural transport was significantly run down by the previous Conservative Government, principally because of the deregulation of bus services that took place in the 1980s when Mr. Ridley was the Secretary of State responsible for such matters.
    I return to point about the Post Office. The hon. Gentleman says that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) left us with the benefits payment card. Indeed he did, and it was another mess that we inherited. When we took over, the project was three years late and the contractor was not willing to continue with it unless he received significantly more money to do so. What was worse, the system still cost substantially more to pay money directly into people's bank accounts.
    I come back to my point: if we do nothing, more and more people will vote with their feet because they are asking for their money to be paid into banks and buildings societies. The Government are giving the Post Office the additional support and investment that will allow it to offer more services. After 2003, people will have a choice—they can either have their money paid direct into their bank or building society or they can get their cash through a post office.

    Family Poverty
    Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: What further measures he proposes to reduce family poverty in the next decade. [107196]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): We are committed to eradicating child poverty in 20 years, and we expect to make substantial further progress towards that goal over the next decade. For most families, the best way out of poverty is through work. Measures in the last two Budgets will mean that the poorest families with children will gain more than £1,000 a year.
    Mr. Mackinlay: Is my hon. Friend the Minister aware that I share his pride in Labour's objective of eliminating child poverty in 20 years, and that I also recognise the wretched situation that the Government inherited after the growth in the disparity of incomes and the considerable growth in poverty during the Thatcher-Major years?

    15
    Does my hon. Friend acknowledge, however, that studies from the London school of economics and the Child Poverty Action Group show that the laudable objective of eliminating child poverty in 20 years will not be achieved unless there is an accelerated initiative by the Government in their existing programmes and more resources are allocated to the objective, and that if there is no change we will have eliminated only two thirds of the existing poverty? To demonstrate the scale of that situation, I point out that child poverty will be at the same level as it was when Labour left office in 1979. Will the Minister tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Labour Members want more resources allocated to achieving that important policy objective?
    Mr. Bayley: I reassure my hon. Friend that our policies are already making a difference. As a result of tax and benefits measures, the families of 800,000 children who were living in poverty have been raised above the poverty line, and that is just the start. We have set an extremely challenging objective, which is why it will take 20 years of work to achieve it, but the Government are determined to do so.
    We have further measures in the pipeline, such as the new child tax credit which will be introduced next April, and the changes to disability living allowance which will increase the incomes of families with severely disabled three and four-year-olds. That is a long-term project, and we acknowledge that it will be difficult to achieve. We are putting large sums towards it—by the end of this Parliament we will have provided an additional £6 billion. The goal can be achieved if we are single-minded in our purpose, and we are.
    Mr. David Heath: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is real, if sometimes hidden, poverty in rural areas, as confirmed by a study last week? Contrary to the Prime Minister's rather rosy view, poorer families in rural areas face difficulties in accessing services and they have additional costs. Will the Minister make sure that his policies directly address that problem?
    Mr. Bayley: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is indeed poverty in rural as well as urban areas. Hon. Friends from constituencies throughout the country, including my hon. Friends the Members for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Quinn) and for Castle Point (Mrs. Butler), make that point. The Government's policies to attack poverty apply equally in rural areas as in urban areas.
    The key reason why poverty trebled when the Conservatives were in power was a trebling of the number of workless households with children. The key policy to attack worklessness is the working families tax credit, which applies in all constituencies, urban and rural. The problem is not confined to the inner cities; it is a nationwide problem that is the legacy of 18 years of Conservative policy, and we have the policies to tackle and reverse it with our strategy to eliminate child poverty.
    Mr. Frank Field: Will my hon. Friend confirm that there is tremendous support among Labour Members for the Government's objective of countering child poverty? Will he further confirm that, in achieving
    16
    that objective, the higher that the Government feel it safe to set the statutory minimum wage, the lower will be the cost to taxpayers of the working families tax credit?
    Mr. Bayley: We have made it clear from the start that the rate of the national minimum wage will be kept under review, and indeed it will.
    Mr. David Willetts: I welcome back the Minister from his visit to the Ceredigion by-election, where Labour went from second to fourth place. I hope that he will be paying many more such visits around the country. I have a simple question for him. Will he give the House a cast-iron promise that the working families tax credit will be delivered through the pay packet from April, as planned?
    Mr. Bayley: Yes, it will.

    Lone Parents (Education)
    Mr. Ben Bradshaw: What measures his Department has taken to reduce barriers in the benefits system to education for lone parents. [107197]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle): The benefits system provides support for lone parents who take up education and training. Time spent on study does not affect their benefit. Lone parents on the new deal may also get help with course fees, travel expenses and the cost of child care while attending approved work-focused training or education.
    Mr. Bradshaw: Does my hon. Friend accept that counting the student loan as income rather than money that must be paid back can pose a particular problem for mature students? If she cannot change that rule, will she describe the extra help that she and her colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment may make available to help people who want to improve themselves through education in order to get back into work?
    Angela Eagle: This year, the total budget for child care access funds in education colleges is £25 million, which is almost three times the amount made available last year. There is extra student support in higher education—£12 million in the current year—through access funds, too. The DFEE has announced that it will be introducing in due course means-tested child care grants for parents who want to study. So we realise that this is an issue, and we are tackling it.
    Mr. Crispin Blunt: What percentage of single parents successfully getting a job following invitation for interviews under the new deal for lone parents does the Minister regard as a good return for investment in the scheme?
    Angela Eagle: There are more than 32,000 lone parents in jobs who would not have been given any help by the Conservative party. Any lone parent getting a job is a benefit. In due course, we shall be publishing an analysis of the new deal for lone parents. A report on the pilot project, which is due at the end of the month, will show that the scheme has covered 90 per cent. of its costs.

    17
    All those 32,000 lone parents with a job have children, and they came from workless households. They are now in households with work, and that is how we shall tackle child poverty.

    Child Support Agency
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: If he will make a statement on his proposals for reform of the Child Support Agency. [107199]
    The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): The Bill that gives effect to our proposed reforms of the child support scheme is being discussed in Standing Committee. We are on course to start the new system in 2002.
    Mr. Howarth: The overwhelming number of CSA cases in my constituency involves men who are very happy to contribute to the maintenance of children from their first marriage, but who find it extremely difficult to meet the agency's demands. Given that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), said in October that 190,000 absent parents—in most cases, that means the fathers—are likely to face higher assessments under the Government's proposals, does the Secretary of State share my concern that such proposals will lead to much greater stress and further suicidal tendencies among some fathers, while the feckless escape into the night?
    Mr. Darling: Most assessments will in fact be lower and, as the changes that we are introducing will be phased in, both families will have some time to adjust to any vastly different settlement. I agree that difficulty arises because fathers must sometimes wait months before they find out how much they are supposed to be paying, and when they get the bill it is very often much more than they can afford, and that naturally leads to great tension. Under the new, simplified system that we are introducing, it will be possible to calculate in days, not months, how much a father—it is usually the father—will have to pay, so payments will flow far more quickly. We should not lose sight of the fact that, as a result, up to 1 million children will gain, and that must be a good thing.
    Mr. John Wilkinson: Does the Secretary of State not realise that an arbitrary, formulaic system is ineffectual and that each family's circumstances are different? To criminalise those who withhold payment will surely lead to them absconding and going into hiding. If, ultimately, the sanction of jail is invoked, how will that help their earning prospects or make it easier for them to look after their children?
    Mr. Darling: There are two points. First, the simplified formula makes it possible to calculate quickly—within days—the amount due. Anyone who has children knows that it is difficult to calculate down to the last penny how much children cost, or how much should be paid when two people are living together. We consulted widely on the new simplified formula and it has been widely welcomed. Very few people suggested that we should retain the present system. Some suggested that we should go to the courts, but most people think that the simplified formula is better.
    18
    Secondly, there is a fundamental point of principle involved: an absent parent has a duty to support his or her child. There is no getting away from that, and I make no apology for the fact that we propose that the persistent minority of people who refuse to live up to their obligations ought to be punished. They should be supporting their children—they should not expect somebody else to do it. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should defend people who refuse to pay for their children.

    Pensioners
    Mr. John Bercow: What steps he is taking to ensure that pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. [107200]
    The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): We are committed to taking action to find more effective ways of encouraging eligible pensioners to claim their entitlement to the minimum income guarantee. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, we will shortly announce our decisions on the Government-sponsored national take-up campaign. We hope to do so next week.
    Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. However, given that it is now almost 17 months since the Secretary of State said that the NIRS2 computer breakdown, which deprived 285,000 pensioners of their just entitlements, would be resolved "in the next couple of weeks", will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that those payments, unlike Billy Bunter's postal order, will arrive; that full interest will be paid on top of them; and that Government coffers will not profit by so much as a single penny from this woeful saga of ministerial incompetence?
    Mr. Rooker: It is not our intention that the Government should benefit from the inherited disaster of NIRS2. As the hon. Gentleman knows, because he is a regular attender at Question Time, I said a couple of weeks ago that we had not met the target of clearing the entire backlog, and that there were 83,000 people still to be paid. We are convinced that their payments will be brought fully up to date before the end of the year. We regret the delay. The compensation payments are being paid to people who have experienced delays to their pension payments. The entire saga is very much regretted. That it why it is important that we get to the bottom of it. We must make sure that we do not overload the system in future, so that it can deliver regular payments to our pensioners.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: To solve the problem and ensure that pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled, would it not be easier to lift the state pension?
    Mr. Rooker: I can tell my hon. Friend that it would not. We could raise the state pension to the level of the minimum income guarantee, but, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, it would not benefit the 1.6 million people who already get it. They would lose pound for pound. Also, it would cost £3 billion to do that. As I said earlier, the average income of a single pensioner

    19
    in 1997–98 was £132 net. I can think, as can my hon. Friends, of much better ways of using £3 billion in the social security system, such as by targeting help at those who really need it.

    Vibration White Finger
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: If he will list the functions of his Department in relation to those suffering from vibration white finger. [107201]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): The Department's function in relation to vibration white finger is to administer the industrial injuries scheme to employed earners who have been disabled by the disease. People could also apply for other social security benefits, depending on their individual circumstances. Payment of damages awarded by the courts for this disease to employees of British Coal is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
    Mr. Dalyell: Against the background of the constructive meeting in Cardiff today with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade, and the meeting convened by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) with two distinguished doctors, which some of us attended last week, could the Government do something to speed up the payments to coal miners and shale miners, who have the feeling—it may not be justified, but they have the feeling none the less—that people are waiting until they pass on before awarding the compensation that is surely due to them?
    Mr. Bayley: I thank my hon. Friend for notifying me this morning of the nature of his supplementary question. I hope that progress was made in Cardiff today. Delays have to do with the courts process, although departmental responsibility rests with the Department of Trade and Industry. I shall ensure that my hon. Friend's comments are referred to it.
    If our legal system worked as quickly as our social security system, we would not be considering the issues of recovery because those responsible for the industrial environment in which people contracted the disease, not the state, would pay compensation.

Business of the House
3.31 pm
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): With permission, I shall make a short business statement. The business for the rest of the week will be as follows:
TUESDAY 8 FEBRUARY—Programme motion followed by proceedings on the Northern Ireland Bill 2000, instead of the Armed Forces (Discipline) Bill [Lords].
WEDNESDAY 9 FEBRUARY—Programme motion followed by conclusion of remaining stages of the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
THURSDAY 10 FEBRUARY—Second Reading of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill.
FRIDAY 11 FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
Apart from tomorrow, all the business will be as previously announced. However, the House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages that may be received.
Sir George Young: As the right hon. Lady knows, the Opposition have called for the suspension of the Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly, following the lack of satisfactory progress on decommissioning. We therefore agree with the proposed change in business and will support the Bill tomorrow.
Mr. Andrew Stunell: There is a sense of foreboding in my party about the necessity of undertaking the Northern Ireland Bill. We do not approach the matter with any enjoyment or glee; we are worried about the course on which it takes all parts of the United Kingdom. However, we believe that the measure is necessary, and we support the Leader of the House.
Mrs. Beckett: The Government are grateful to the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir G. Young) and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) for their remarks. They are right to say that the matter is difficult and important. However, we are glad to have support on it across the House.
Mr. Michael Howard: Does the right hon. Lady agree that our consideration of the Bill tomorrow would be greatly assisted if we had sight of the
22
de Chastelain report? Will she use her good offices to ensure that the report is available before tomorrow's debate begins?
Mrs. Beckett: I shall draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows that those matters were aired during my right hon. Friend's statement the other day; they will, no doubt, be aired tomorrow.
Sir Brian Mawhinney: I cannot conceive that any hon. Member would wish to delay unduly the passage of the Bill tomorrow, given the seriousness of the issues that it addresses. I therefore urge the Leader of the House to allow as generous a programme motion as possible. There are advantages to allowing a reasonable debate here within the limits that the Government set, rather than leaving hon. Members to feel that they have not had the opportunity to say what is on their hearts at this time.
Mrs. Beckett: The Government are not seeking to curtail debate unduly. The right hon. Gentleman will note that I have announced a programme motion. With good will across the House, hon. Members will have the opportunity to raise the points that they wish to make.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Can the right hon. Lady say when Second Reading of the Armed Forces (Discipline) Bill will take place? Will it be next week, or will the measure be kicked into the long grass? Many of us have little sympathy for bringing British service discipline into line with the view of the European Court of Human Rights.
Mrs. Beckett: All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I shall make the ordinary business statement on Thursday.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Will there be an opportunity tomorrow to discuss whether we should suspend the release of terrorist prisoners at the same time as suspending the Executive?
Mrs. Beckett: The scope of the debate is a matter for the legislation and for the Chair. I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I hope that tomorrow's debate will be conducted in the spirit and the mood that is, I think, that of the House and the country. Everyone wishes to facilitate the continuation of the peace process, not bring it to a halt.

Points of Order
3.35 pm
Mr. Quentin Davies: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Yesterday's Sunday Express reported that the Government have covert plans to withdraw from the Falklands. The Prime Minister said that
"no withdrawal should occur until after the next general election".
That is a serious matter and I hope, in the circumstances, that a Minister—if not the Prime Minister himself—will come to the Dispatch Box soon to make it absolutely clear where the Government stand and to give Parliament a chance to ask the questions that are naturally in all our minds, not least those of the Falklanders themselves
Madam Speaker: That seems to be a statement rather than a point of order to me, so it requires no response.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. In view of the wanton destruction of United Nations vehicles, the injury to NATO troops and reports over the weekend of mounting and desperate ethnic violence in Mitrovica, coupled with reports of the unsatisfactory situation of our own British soldiers in the cold of Kosovo, has there been any request to make a statement—either by Defence or Foreign Office Ministers—on what is becoming a dire situation?
Madam Speaker: I have not been informed that such a statement is about to be made, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that Foreign Office questions are not far away, and that he will use his ingenuity to ask a question to that effect.

NEW MEMBER
The following Member made the Affirmation required by law, first in Welsh and then in English:
Simon Thomas Esq., for Ceredigion.
Mr. Eric Forth: What does that mean?
Madam Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) had been patient enough, he would have heard the hon. Member for Ceredigion explain himself a moment later.
Mr. David Winnick: The right hon. Gentleman should apologise.
Madam Speaker: Order. Let us cool down; that is quite unnecessary. We have business to do.

Orders of the Day

  Social Security
  3.39 pm
  The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling): I beg to move,
  That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.
  Madam Speaker: I understand that with this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
  That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.
  Mr. Darling: The second order is largely technical. The House will be aware that employers are required to increase guaranteed minimum pensions by the retail prices index or 3 per cent., whichever is less. The order makes it clear that the requirement this year will be to increase guaranteed minimum pensions by 1.1 per cent. The first order covers all other benefits. I make that point because I understand that the Liberals said over the weekend that they would vote against it. If the Liberals vote against this order, they will be voting against all benefit increases in the United Kingdom. The order uprates all social security benefits in the usual way, as I announced in November. It uprates the amount of money that we pay for children in particular: child benefit will rise to £15 for the oldest child and £10 for subsequent children, and, as a result of the measures that we have taken to help families with children, families are already an average £740 a year better off.
  If the Liberals vote against the order, they will be voting not only against increases in child benefit, but against the additional help that we are giving pensioners, particularly older and poorer pensioners. As well as raising the state pension to £67.50, we are increasing the minimum income guarantee for pensioners in line with earnings. Taken with the winter fuel payments, the changes to value-added tax and the introduction of free television licences, that increase will mean that the oldest and poorest pensioners will have gained £500 a year—nearly £10 a week—as a result of steps that we have taken. All that, we understand, is to be opposed by the Liberal party.
  Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: Will the order remedy the anomaly whereby—I believe—460,000 expatriate pensioners currently do not enjoy the uprating, while 390,000 do? It is not a blanket embargo; it is a case of "some do, some do not". We are the only country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that has been treating pensioners in that way. Will the order remedy the unfairness? If not, why not?
  Mr. Darling: The order will not change the position. If we spent money uprating the pensions of people living abroad, that money could not be spent on people in this country.
  Mr. David Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Darling: I will give way to as many hon. Members as I can, but let me finish this point first.

  25
  Over the lifetime of this Parliament, the Government will spend £5 billion on pensioners. I expect to show in today's debate that the money will be well spent and well targeted: it will tackle pensioner poverty, which is one of the many scandals that we inherited from the Conservative party. Let me say to the Liberals, as I said at Question Time, that not only do I fail to understand how on earth they can justify voting against the uprating of all benefits, but I fail to understand how on earth they can justify voting against what is in their own manifesto. Their manifesto stated that they would increase pensions in line with prices, and that they would introduce extra earnings-related help for the poorest pensioners, which is precisely what we propose.
  No one should be in any doubt that the Liberals—who intend to vote against the orders—would, if successful, stop not just pension increases but increases for children, and all the other benefits that go to some of the poorest people in the country. It may be merely a gesture; perhaps people should be thankful that there do not appear to be enough Liberals present to make much of a difference. I believe, however, that any serious political party ought to be serious about its intentions, and should not vote against the Government unless it really wants to carry the day—which, in this instance, would deny many people benefits.
  Mr. Steve Webb: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Darling: Certainly.
  Mr. Webb: To save the right hon. Gentleman the trouble of misrepresenting us for the rest of the afternoon, let me assure him that, should his party be defeated in the Division, we, through the usual channels, will make time available at the earliest opportunity for the orders to be brought back to the House, amended only in respect of the 75p rise and the capital limits. We will then give them plain passage, and the business can be completed by the end of the week.
  Mr. Darling: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has a sense of humour, which we all appreciate. I shall continue to represent accurately what is in the Liberal party manifesto, to which I think we should all attach significant weight. Presumably, the hon. Gentleman would not have stood as a Liberal party candidate if he did not intend to support his party's manifesto—or so one might have thought.
  Let us examine what the hon. Gentleman has done during the time that he has been the Liberals' pensions spokesman. Last year, he came up with a policy to pay more to those aged 80 and over. Part of that policy—in addition to the policy for scrapping the state earnings-related pension scheme, which would completely disrupt the pensions industry—he has repeated, saying that the basic pension would continue to be uprated in line with prices. What has happened between publication of the manifesto, the hon. Gentleman's last public policy utterance, and today's debate, seems to me opportunism at its worst.
  Mr. Webb: Will the right hon. Gentleman be staying to hear the answer?
  Mr. Darling: I shall certainly be staying, and I shall see what happens to the Liberal Democrats' policy.
  Mr. Barry Jones: My right hon. Friend made very welcome references to child benefit, and
  26
  I certainly believe that mothers and their children would greatly benefit from such changes. However, is he not astonished at Liberal Democrat Members' irresponsible and childish attitude to those issues? Could he explain to me the type of mindset that is prepared to turn somersaults to make such ridiculous points?
  Mr. Darling: The short answer is no, I cannot. I would never attempt to explain the Liberal Democrats' mindset. Moreover, I have always understood that one of the great virtues of the Liberal Democrat party was that it did not have a collective mindset—which is why it has been able to come up with so many policy contortions at the same time.
  Mr. Winnick: My right hon. Friend mentioned winter fuel payments. Did he notice that, at Question Time, Opposition Front Benchers gave absolutely no commitment that they would continue such non-means-tested benefits? Was that not interesting? Should we not warn the electorate that, if the Tories were to win the next general election, winter fuel payments would almost certainly go?
  Mr. Darling: As I understand it, Conservative policy is to oppose winter fuel payments, and, were they to get back to power, to remove them. However, it may be that the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. portillo) has already delivered a lecture to the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and told him that he will have to change his policy on that issue, too. We shall have to wait; perhaps the hon. Gentleman's speech will be more interesting than it otherwise might have been.
  I should like to deal with two aspects of the uprating order. The first is pensions—which is a matter of particular interest to hon. Members—and the second is the payments that we make for children.
  Mr. John Bercow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Darling: I shall certainly give way in a moment.
  I should like to return to a theme that we touched on a few moments ago, at Question Time—the problem that we inherited. The problem can be put quite simply: whereas pensioner incomes as a whole increased by about 64 per cent.—mainly because of occupational pensions that have been building up in the past few years, and the state earnings-related pension scheme, which is only just beginning to mature—the gap between the better-off pensioners and the poorest pensioners has widened. The figures show that the income of the bottom fifth of pensioner couples increased by only one third, whereas the income of the top fifth increased by almost 80 per cent.
  The Government therefore believe that the right thing to do is to target most of the £5 billion extra on those pensioners who lost out. That is not all that we are doing, but that is what we wanted to do. The poorest 1 million single pensioners and the 1 million pensioner couples who

  27
  have not kept up need to be supported. That is why we are targeting help on those people, as well as helping all pensioners across the board.
  Miss Anne McIntosh: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Darling: May I give way first to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), and then to the hon. Lady?
  Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend may intervene first.
  Mr. Darling: Despite the hon. Gentleman's uncharacteristic courtesy, I shall give way to him first.
  Mr. Bercow: I am sorry; I was merely displaying my natural chivalry, which I should hope would command the assent of the House as a whole.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why the Government are not prepared to apply the same principle to their payment of benefits as they apply to the payment of commercial debts? Given that the late-payment legislation requires businesses to pay interest on delayed commercial debts, why are the Government not prepared today to undertake that if, through their own incompetence they have caused misery and suffering to thousands of people by denying them their benefits, when those benefits eventually materialise, those individuals will receive interest on top of them?
  Mr. Darling: People are receiving benefits. However, if the hon. Gentleman is referring to the national insurance recording system, just before he goes on about incompetence, he should remember who—in 1996—signed the contract for that system. If my memory serves me well, in 1996, the Secretary of State for Social Security was the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), who, sadly, is no longer with us.
  Mr. Bercow: What?
  Mr. Darling: The right hon. Gentleman is not with us physically in the Chamber, but I am sure that he is with us somewhere.
  Miss McIntosh: I thank the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) for the chivalry shown on both sides of the House. Nevertheless, I should like to make a more mundane point, on which I have tried to press the right hon. Gentleman on several occasions. Will he take the opportunity of today's debate to dispense with the rule that annuities must be taken out at age 75? A groundswell of opinion, which I cannot believe is unique to the Vale of York, is in favour of dispensing with the rule. Will he satisfy our constituents and the House by stating today that he will lift the rule?
  Mr. Darling: No. The hon. Lady will know that the Inland Revenue and Department of Social Security have been looking at annuities to see whether the system should be changed but, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Social Security has said, if there are
  28
  people who have delayed taking their annuity until the age of 75, presumably, they must have been living on some other income or capital before getting to that point. I do not believe that a change to the annuity rules should be the No. 1 priority. If people are getting tax relief for a pension, they should use their money as a pension, not simply as another form of tax-privileged saving.
  Let me set out what we are doing. I said that we wanted to help all pensioners, particularly the poorest. We knew this year's RPI increase would be low, which is why we increased winter fuel payments—so that each pensioner household would receive £100, a fivefold increase. For the first time last year, it was paid before Christmas. We hope that that will happen again this year. We are paying winter fuel payments to all households with someone over the age of 60. I shall announce the arrangements for doing that soon.
  Later this year, those aged over 75 will get free television licences; the oldest pensioners tend to be among the poorest. On top of that, we have restored free eye tests, reduced VAT on fuel and provided help for pensioners that was not there in the past, taking 200,000 pensioners out of income tax altogether, so that nearly two thirds of pensioners pay no tax. The 10p starting rate of tax helps pensioners as well.
  Clearly, our priority must be to ensure that those who have lost out over the past 20 years receive help. Although the winter fuel payments and free television licences disproportionately help pensioners on the lowest incomes, that is not enough.
  The House will be aware that the basic pension, although the foundation of the pension system, has never been enough on its own. That is why, in the 1960s, the graduated pension scheme was introduced and, in 1978, SERPS was introduced, but even those measures did not do enough to help pensioners who were earning low incomes throughout their lives. That is one of the reasons why we are making changes to SERPS, so that the state second pension greatly increases the amount of money that goes to someone on low lifetime earnings.
  To deal with pensioners who lost out, we introduced the minimum income guarantee, which sets a decent base for pensioner incomes. It is targeting our resources where they are most needed, making the worst off better off. For single pensioners, the pension is £78: an £8 increase since 1998–99. For couples, it is £121.95: a £12.60 increase since 1998–99. For the oldest—those over 80—it is £86 and £131. Those measures are a substantial help for pensioners who have lost out over the years. As has been made abundantly clear, not just today, but on previous occasions, the Conservative party is against the minimum income guarantee and will get rid of it. A total of 1.5 million pensioners would lose out as a result.
  I know that some hon. Members advocate increasing the pension by the earnings link, but when we consider that restoring the link would cost about £18 billion by about 2020 and that the poorest pensioners would not see a single penny of that benefit, we realise that there are far better ways in which to deal with the immediate problem for far too many pensioners: they do not have enough money to live on. We introduced the minimum income guarantee to help them.
  Mr. Patrick Hall: On the point about the poorest pensioners not benefiting from an increase in the

  29
  basic state pension, presumably my right hon. Friend refers to pensioners on income support. Why cannot the thresholds be raised in line with that? Indeed, is that not one of the principal purposes of the minimum income guarantee?
  Mr. Darling: The minimum income guarantee has the effect of ensuring that the poorest pensioners get more help. If we increased pensions across the board, the top fifth of pensioners, whose incomes have increased by some 80 per cent., would not appreciate or notice the difference. If we had not introduced the minimum income guarantee, those at the bottom would have lost out. I make no apology for the fact that the £5 billion that we are spending in this Parliament is concentrated on those pensioners who have lost out—the poorest pensioners, who are living in poverty. They are the sort of people who voted for our Government to help them out of the difficulties that the Tories had got them into. That is the right thing to do.
  Mr. Vernon Coaker: Is not the problem with this debate that it takes place in a context where everyone sees pensioners as a homogenous group of poor pensioners, whereas the reality is that there are rich pensioners, middle-income pensioners and poor pensioners? Are not the Government targeting help at those who need it, rather than spreading it across a range of pensioners, many of whom do not need help?
  Mr. Darling: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State said at Question Time that average pensioner net income is about £132. Like many other sections of the population, there are some pensioners who are well off and there are some who are appallingly badly off. The right thing to do is to help pensioners who have lost out, and to get those living in poverty out of poverty. That is the right approach for any reasonable and sensible Government to take. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) mutters about the winter fuel payment, which was universal. However, it benefits disproportionately those on low incomes. Again, it is more help for pensioners on low incomes who would not otherwise have received help.
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: The hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) made an important point, and it may benefit the House to know that the Select Committee on Social Security may soon be looking at pensioner poverty and where the real financial agony lies. That would help the debate.
  It is perfectly valid for the Secretary of State to say that targeting poverty within available resources is sensible, but there is another aspect. The contributory principle has a wider social role, distributing income horizontally across people's lives. If there is so much of a surplus in the national insurance fund, surely there should be some balance, not just this obsession with targeting the poor.
  Mr. Darling: I am glad that the Select Committee is to look at pensioner incomes, as I suspect that it is indeed commonly held that all pensioners are poor. That is not the case. Many have investment income or substantial occupational pensions, which have largely built up through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, we have pensioners who have lost out badly.
  30
  I am glad that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) recognises that—so should his party's spokesman, the hon. Member for Northavon, who has researched this matter. That research has been helpful. Presumably, the hon. Gentleman helped to write the Liberal Democrat manifesto, which states that the party would increase pensions in line with prices and would have earnings-related help for the poorest pensioners. The hon. Gentleman has learned the lessons of his research—it is a pity that he has not followed through the logic of that position today.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire has stated that the Government Actuary reports that the national insurance fund is in surplus. He will know that the fund has to retain a working balance, which accounts for more than half that surplus. The remaining surplus would be eaten up in two years if we were to adopt the policies that the hon. Gentleman and some others are advocating—increasing the basic state pension up to £75, or the minimum income guarantee. That policy might get the hon. Gentleman by for a couple of years, but it is no long-term pensions policy.
  The Government actuary's report and the quinquennial review of the national insurance fund do not take account of the changes that we have made in policy since March 1999. To base a pensions policy on a surplus that is there today but that would be eaten up within a couple of years is not a sensible way of proceeding in the future.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire referred to the contributory principle. Part of the problem is that pensions are contributory, but that far too many people have not contributed during their working lives to looking after themselves in their old age. That is why we want to build on the minimum income guarantee; why we have introduced stakeholder pensions; and why we have reformed the state second pension to increase the amount that the state gives, not only to low but to moderate earners, through the rebate structure.
  I remind the House that someone earning £6,000 gets £14 a week under the state earnings-related pension scheme but will get £54 a week under the new state second pension. We are not only helping today's pensioners but ensuring that far more people will be able to build up pensions in the future.
  Clearly, one cannot save if one does not have a wage. That is why we have attached so much importance to ensuring that people of working age stay in work, and to trying to prevent pensioner poverty in the future by going back to the root of the problem and giving children the best possible start, which will allow them to get good jobs and eventually retire on good incomes.
  I want to touch on the measures in the orders to help to combat child poverty. We are the first Government ever to commit ourselves to eradicating child poverty in 20 years and to halving it in 10: another policy to which the Conservative party is opposed. When we published our poverty report in September, setting out the scale of the problem and what we intended to do about it, Conservatives simply laughed and wanted nothing to do with our efforts, despite the fact that, during the 20 or so years in which they were in power, child poverty trebled. That is a damning indictment of the previous Government.
  As a result of our Budget measures, we have already taken nearly 1 million children out of poverty. We are also helping parents to get into work and increasing the

  31
  amount spent on families and children. We are helping children to get a decent education in school. From April next year, the new child credit will be worth up to an extra £416 a year.
  The orders increase child benefit beyond the retail prices index for the second year running, so the eldest child gets £15 a week, which is over £3.50 more than only two years ago. We have increased the amount that parents on income support get for the under-11 rate of personal allowances by more than £9 a week, or about £400 a year.
  We are determined to ensure, through a variety of measures, including increasing income, that children have the best possible start in life and that there is enough money in people's homes for them to bring up their children properly.
  The orders deserve support. They increase benefits across the board, in the normal way, but—crucially—they do far more for pensioners, and especially those who lost out during the Tory years. They also take us a further step along the way to the eradication of child poverty, which should be regarded as a blight on any society. I commend them to the House.
  4.3 pm
  Mr. David Willetts: We will not vote against the orders, because we do not want to stop the uprating of benefits, but I want to ask the Secretary of State some questions about the value of the uprating: 1.1 per cent. on income-related benefits and 1.6 per cent. on the Rossi index.
  The Secretary of State will be aware that his Department's spending plans, published in March, said that non-income-related benefits are assumed to be uprated by 1.3 per cent. in April 2000 and that income-related benefits and jobseeker's allowance are assumed to be uprated by 1.9 per cent. in April 2000. The orders save him £200 million compared with his own Department's expenditure plans for 2000–01. We want to know what has happened to that money. We are also concerned, and we understand pensioners' frustration, about the increase of 75p in the basic pension. The Conservative vision is one in which pensioners increasingly share in the rising affluence of our country, because they have genuine private savings.
  Mr. John Cryer: Is the hon. Gentleman proud of the fact that the Government of which he was a member cut the earnings link with the state pension?
  Mr. Willetts: Well, the figures that I was about to cite from the latest pensioners' income series give a good picture of what happened to pensioner incomes in our years in office. The figures show that
  "The proportion of pensioner units with some income from investments was 68 per cent. in 1987–98. The average amount received by those units with some investment income was £40 per week in 1997–98, having grown by 80 per cent. between 1979 and 1996–97."
  We delivered increasing pensioner incomes because more and more pensioners had investments and occupational pensions.
  32
  The Government's figures also show that, by 1997–98, 60 per cent. of pensioner units had an income from occupational pensions and
  "The average amount received by those units … was £92 a week in 1997–98."
  When I hear the Secretary of State and the Minister of State explain to their somewhat sceptical colleagues that that increase in pensioner incomes means that the basic pension is less and less well targeted at relieving pensioner poverty, I know that the Ministers are using the evidence of the success that we achieved. We encouraged more and more pensioners to have funded occupational pensions or private savings.
  Mr. Coaker: Does not the hon. Gentleman's point confirm that the Government's policy is right? If a big group of pensioners are better off, why should they be given extra money that they do not need when we can target extra help at the poorest pensioners and make a difference to their lives? Why spread the jam across the whole group, many of whom do not need it?
  Mr. Willetts: I accept and welcome the figures that I have given. More and more pensioners enjoy higher incomes because they have occupational pensions and private savings, and fewer and fewer depend on the basic state pension alone. We are happy to hear Ministers talk about that, because it is what we achieved. Our objection to what the Government are doing is that they are imposing a double whammy on pensioners. They will receive a measly 75p increase in the basic pension, but they are also suffering from all the attacks on occupational pensions and private savings, which mean that the boost in pensioner incomes that we have seen over the past 20 years is under threat.
  The representatives of funded pensions—the people whom the Secretary of State is praying in aid to defend the tiny increase in the basic pension—have commented unfavourably on his policies. In a survey of 216 occupational pension schemes, more than half the participants felt that
  "the thrust of the government's proposals was not helpful"—
  when it came to encouraging occupational pension provision. A story in Personnel Today was headed "Uncertainty brings pensions delay" and it stated:
  "A survey by the National Association of Pension Funds shows under 3 per cent. of occupational pension schemes were improved in 1999. This compares with between 7 and 10 per cent. in each of the past five years."
  There is a planning blight, caused by uncertainty about what the Government will do to the occupational pension regime with their proposals for stakeholders.
  Almost half of the participants in another survey by a leading fund of actuaries think that
  "the introduction of stakeholder plans will make it less likely that employers will want to offer or continue to offer occupational pensions."
  The picture that is building up is of a measly increase in the basic pension as well as policies that are a threat to the alternatives that the Conservatives want to encourage—funded occupational pension provision and private saving.
  Mr. Webb: The hon. Gentleman has twice described the rise in the state pension as "measly". For the avoidance of doubt, can he say what he would do were

  33
  he to be Secretary of State for Social Security now? Would he have put the pension up by 75p, or more or less, this April?
  Mr. Willetts: We would carry on increasing the basic pension in line with prices. We would also encourage and boost pensioner incomes by the policies that were so successful during the previous Government's years in office and that have resulted in the statistics that the Secretary of State is always so happy to quote. However, those policies are under threat, because of the changes in advance corporation tax, the changes in the tax regime that mean that pensioners with incomes so low that they do not even come within the scope of income tax are losing the full benefit from the income from their savings and, of course, because of the planning blight caused by the perpetual changes to the pensions regime that the Government are imposing on the pensions industry.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman said that he would, in effect, do what the Government are doing on pensions. What about the winter fuel payment? Does he accept that the £100, which is not means-tested, should be paid? What is his policy on this important question?
  Mr. Willetts: We will consider the winter fuel payment as part of our wider pensioner package. What perplexes me—here I have some sympathy with the view of the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb)—is how the Government jump between favouring universalism, saying that it is very important that everyone should get the winter fuel payment, and then the case for means testing. We have no plans to remove the winter fuel payment. However, we are also planning an increase in average pensioner incomes, to be achieved by policies that, above all, reward savings and funded pensions. Our central critique of the Government is that they rely on that success to justify what they are doing by way of the uprating for the basic pension but, at the same time, they are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. They cannot carry on relying on the increases in occupational pensions and savings that are providing the statistics from which they quote.
  The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech. However, he must realise the position. If everything was so rosy in the past, why would the best part of 5 million people—moderate earners, making between £10,000 and £20,000 a year—be working with no second pension provision whatever? Surely there has to be a policy to get those people into a viable second pension operation. The previous system did not work—the pensions industry passed those people by on the other side of the road.
  Mr. Willetts: Our concern is that the Government's stakeholder pension will not bring people in the income bracket that he describes into new pension provision that they would not otherwise have had. Instead, they will simply drive people out of existing occupational pension schemes into stakeholding. He will be able to announce to the House apparently large numbers of people taking
  34
  out stakeholder pensions but, as my earlier quote from the pensions industry suggests, that will be churning out of existing occupational pensions.
  Mr. Rooker: We will not count those.
  Mr. Willetts: I will hold the right hon. Gentleman to that; one of the widespread beliefs of people who care about what he is doing is that he will end up simply churning existing provision.
  The other issue is the interaction between the minimum income guarantee and pension planning. If the minimum income guarantee increases in line with earnings—I think that the figure is 4.9 per cent.—what is the sense of people on a very low income saving, possibly in extremely difficult financial circumstances, getting a stakeholder pension? It makes them no better off than they would have been if they had not saved before? I would welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box a second time if he could offer us a figure for how much people have to have saved in a stakeholder pension during their working life to receive an income that will float them off means-tested benefits. If people cannot save that amount of money, they will be no better off as a result of having taken out the stakeholder pension. That is the $64,000 question. The minimum income guarantee is a further extension of means-testing.
  Mr. Darling: I notice that the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the state second pension, which is designed to help precisely those who are on low earnings throughout their lives because it enables them to accrue pensions at a substantially greater rate than at present, as well as helping moderate earners. What is his policy for the poorest pensioners? He has made it very clear that he would take away the minimum income guarantee, so that would reduce their income. What would he do for them?
  Mr. Willetts: The minimum income guarantee is a mirage. It is merely what I still think of as the pensioner premium in income support. The Secretary of State, like so many new Labour Ministers, talks as if it were some extraordinary innovation in social policy. When I was in government, I believed that pensioners are entitled to something like the pensioner premium in income support, and I still support that now. However, the Secretary of State has merely renamed—misnamed—that premium as the minimum income guarantee, while keeping all the old income support rules. The old problem of low take-up remains, but there is also a problem with the capital rules.
  Many pensioners who are not entitled to the minimum income guarantee have total incomes well below it. The Secretary of State doubtless receives the kind of letters that I receive from pensioners who are baffled when they see him popping up on television and radio to talk about the minimum income guarantee while they are struggling to make ends meet on incomes well below it. The main reason for that is the capital rule.
  Arguably, a well-designed capital rule would enable people to receive an income from capital roughly equal to their putative entitlement to the benefit of which they are being deprived. I asked the House of Commons Library to calculate, at current interest rates, how much a pensioner would need in bank or building society savings to yield an income equalling the current average income

  35
  support figure. How much would one need, given all that has happened to interest rates, to receive an income flow matching average income support?
  In 1998, a pensioner would have required £49,100 in savings to receive an income matching average income support entitlement. Many pensioners have savings between £8,000—the upper limit for the capital rule—and £49,100. They are clearly worse off, living on incomes below the minimum income guarantee. Many are irritated and surprised by the Secretary of State's grandiose rhetoric about a minimum income guarantee when the treatment of capital is an enormous hole at the centre of it. Many pensioners fall below the minimum income guarantee, and that position has not changed since 1990. We expect Ministers, after promising for years to review the situation, to take some action.
  Mr. Tony McWalter: I am confused by the figures that the hon. Gentleman has offered. Clearly, anyone with that level of savings could more than make up the deficiency between the minimum income guarantee at £78.45 and the pension at £67.50. As the hon. Gentleman is clearly talking about a much larger deficit, will he clarify what additional income component he is describing?
  Mr. Willetts: Pensioners live in many different circumstances. Much will depend on basic state pension entitlement. The hon. Gentleman is assuming full entitlement to the contributory pension, which all too often is not the case. I am glad that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and the Select Committee on Social Security are inquiring into a contributory principle problem that often strikes us in our constituency surgeries involving those whose incomes fall below full entitlement. My example relies on the average income support payment, and on how much someone would require in capital to achieve a matching income. That is the basis of the House of Commons Library figures.
  I should like to remind the Secretary of State of what Ministers have promised in previous uprating debates, going right back to 1998—before he or I held our posts. In February 1998, the then Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley), said:
  "I do not dissent from the view that there are problems with capital and disregards. In our review of benefits and the general review of the welfare state, capital and disregards will have to be considered".—[Official Report, 18 February 1998; Vol. 306, c. 1148.]
  We heard a similar message in February 1999, when the right hon. Gentleman had become the Secretary of State:
  "All hon. Members will agree that, above any other source of complaints, pensioners tell us that they have saved all their lives but are penalised for it … I made it clear that the Government want to consider the matter."—[Official Report, 28 January 1999; Vol. 324, c. 486.]
  The Government have been considering the matter for a long time. It is about time that those capital disregards were properly reviewed and uprated, in order to match them more closely to current interest rates. Alternatively, the Government could do something straightforward and
  36
  simple; they could stop calling the minimum income guarantee a minimum income guarantee, because plainly it is not one.
  The Secretary of State briefly touched on tax benefit integration and child poverty. He knows that we shall watch closely the implementation of the working families tax credit. The Government claim to believe in evidence-based policy, but I have never heard evidence from any Minister or ministerial adviser that paying a benefit of given value through the tax system instead of through the benefits system has any effect whatever on incentives.
  We shall be interested in whether the WFTC has any impact on the "wallet-purse" question—the distribution of income within the family. We shall also want to know what it means for the employers who are implementing the system. In Social Security questions, I was encouraged to hear from the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), the cast-iron assurance that the WFTC will be paid through the pay packet in April, although that does not sit easily with increasing reports from employers' organisations of the enormous practical problems of implementing the measure.
  I hope that Ministers will give also us their response to the Government's thinking on the subject as set out in the Treasury working paper, "Supporting Children through the Tax Benefit System", published in November 1999. Pages 39 and 40 of that document rather shoot Ministers' fox. They undermine the rhetoric about the essential importance of paying the WFTC through the pay packet.
  The Treasury's latest idea is to put that policy into reverse, by reverting to what the Treasury refers to as an integrated child credit—not to be confused with the children's tax credit—which, lo and behold, will be paid as a benefit to the caring parent. Having painfully pushed through the House the controversial proposal that family credit has to be renamed the working families tax credit and paid through the pay packet, the Government's latest piece of thinking is the bold suggestion that they should make a U-turn and revert to paying it as a benefit.
  The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) looks baffled. I recommend that she read the Treasury document. The Treasury is working on the introduction of what it describes as an integrated child credit. However, I am not aware that we have heard any comment on that proposal from Social Security Ministers; we do not know whether they are also working on it, or whether they think that, having lost the WFTC to the Treasury and the tax system, they should regain the "integrated child credit".
  If Social Security Ministers believe the analysis in the Treasury working document as to the case for paying the credit as a benefit to the caring parent, most of the rhetoric that they deployed when they were putting the WFTC through the House is shot to ribbons. This will be the next U-turn in social policy; we shall watch closely to see what the Government are up to.
  We have heard some rather coy assurances from Ministers that the long-awaited Green Paper on housing and housing benefit will eventually appear. However, the trouble is that, while they are stonewalling in this place with those vague references to the Green Paper's publication, their spinners are busily spinning away. Last year, we were spun that there would be a radical change in housing benefit—another payment that was supposed

  37
  to be made through the pay packet. We are now being told—I think in today's Daily Telegraph—that the Government are considering spreading housing benefit entitlement further up the earnings scale. We shall be interested to hear from Ministers the meaning of the spread of means-tested benefits further up the income scale.
  The Secretary of State has been perpetrating a fraud in the complacency of his statements on benefit fraud. In his most recent press release, dated 28 January, which is headed, "Darling welcomes successes in fighting benefit fraud", he said:
  "Today's figures show that our tougher anti-fraud measures are beginning to bite."
  He concluded:
  "we are winning the fight against fraud."
  However, figures that came out on that very day, in a separate, accompanying press release, from the Government's own statistical service, show that the reduction in income support fraud and customer error—it is a tiny reduction—"is not statistically significant." There has also been a tiny change in jobseeker's allowance fraud and customer error, of which the statisticians say:
  "This reduction is not statistically significant".
  Therefore, we have changes in the level of fraud that are not statistically significant, according to the Government's own statistical service, which the Secretary of State welcomes as successes in fighting benefit fraud. That is the gap between Ministers' rhetoric on benefit fraud and the reality.
  The Secretary of State claimed—let me quote what he perhaps hopes will be his epitaph—
  "I do not want to be remembered as another Secretary of State who tinkered with the system. We are taking on vested interests."
  All the crucial and central questions in benefit reform are being ducked. The Secretary of State needs to address them, but conspicuously failed to so today. The central feature of this uprating is indeed more tinkering. We need something better than that. We need some progress and some vision, and we shall get neither until the right hon. Gentleman tackles the difficult questions about the future of pensions funding, the reality of tax credits and what is to be done about social security fraud—the questions which, I am afraid, he has ignored for far too long.
  4.27 pm
  Mr. Patrick Hall: I am one of those who signed early-day motion 73, expressing the point of view that the 75p increase in the state retirement pension is inadequate. To me, it is self-evident that it is inadequate, and that is certainly the strongly held opinion of every pensioner to whom I have spoken on the subject.
  I have heard, and listened to, the arguments of pensioners in my constituency, and I have listened to the arguments of others on these matters. The Government prefer to focus on the whole package of measures that they have already introduced for pensioners. The Liberal Democrats have made it clear that they wish to focus only on the 75p issue. It is a little difficult to know exactly what the Conservatives are doing on that matter because, until today, they would not give their view on the 75p increase. Now, there is grudging acceptance of it—they said that they would introduce it themselves—but they reject much of the wider package that the Government have introduced for pensioners.
  38
  That package—the minimum income guarantee, the winter fuel payment, home energy efficiency grants and many other measures—is of benefit to pensioners. Indeed, I understand that the real cash value of those measures is greater than what it would have cost to restore the link between the basic state pension and average earnings. Not to recognise that whole package, not to recognise the Government's determination to tackle pensioner poverty, is to fail to engage constructively in the debate on pensions and pensioners; and to fail to engage in that debate is to do a disservice to pensioners.
  It seems to me that, nowadays, that is exactly what the Liberal Democrats are doing on that matter. Their motion in the Opposition day debate on 17 January, which simply reproduced the wording of the early-day motion on the 75p increase, represented a lost opportunity to examine the subject of pensions and pensioners' life styles in the round, in greater depth—a lost opportunity to be positive about these matters.
  As I have said, I wish to speak principally about the 75p increase. I am unhappy about that increase. I have said so publicly and in the context of considering the system as a whole—the wider package of where we are and where we are likely to go and whether there is a need to restore the link with earnings or, perhaps instead, create a prices index that is related to the reality of most pensioners' lives. That means, I suggest, looking at local authority charges for the sorts of services that many pensioners make use of more than other sections of the community. It means taking on board rent and council tax levels rather than mortgages, which form part of the retail prices index that is the basis of determining benefit increases. As I understand it, most pensioners do not have a mortgage—if they had one, they have paid it off. Such considerations should form part of the mature, rational debate on pensions, older people and how we value them that needs to develop.
  I very much hope that the Liberal Democrats will engage constructively in that debate. I did not vote for their one-line motion on 17 January, because they were clearly playing politics with an issue that deserves and requires serious attention in depth and in the round. I felt that the Government amendment on that occasion at least addressed much of the wider agenda. Today, it seems that it has been confirmed that the Liberal Democrats are ever more determined to play foolish gesture politics with serious issues. Having wasted the opportunity last month to be serious about pensions and pensioners, they are now about to vote against any increase in statutory sick pay, maternity pay, child benefit and disability benefits, income support and housing and council tax benefits as well as voting for a zero pension increase. That is unhelpful gesture politics which will not be understood or supported outside the House.
  Unlike the Liberal Democrats, I shall vote in support of those tens of thousands of people who are in receipt of the social security benefits to which they are entitled. However, in doing that, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government to accept the sincerity of the views of the many pensioners in Bedford and Kempston to whom I have spoken, and whom I represent. They are aware that the recognition of pensioners is implicit in the minimum income guarantee, in the winter fuel payments and in the free television licences that are to come. However, I am convinced that they have a different conception of the role of the basic state pension from that

  39
  which seems to come across from the Government. Those pensioners see the state pension as something which they have contributed to, worked for, and earned. According to them, its existence is the mark of a civilised society, of a social contract that binds people together and of a society in which human beings are not thrown on to the scrap heap once they reach retirement.
  The Government say that the state retirement pension is the building block of pensioner income. Many people outside the House well understand that the state pension needs topping up by second pensions, occupational pensions and private pensions, too. It is well understood outside the House that the state pension does not—and probably never could—meet all the cash needs of people in retirement. However, it is understood that the state retirement pension is a crucial foundation stone and it must be a statutory foundation upon which the other elements of pensioner income can be securely constructed.
  The state pension is political as well as financial. The message transmitted to pensioners by the previous Conservative Government when they broke the link with earnings—that message has been conveyed down the years since and again today with the meagre 75p increase—was that the importance of the state pension is diminishing. Its value is withering and its strength as a foundation stone is weakening. Too many pensioners feel that they do not matter, and they are clearly worried.
  It is absolutely right that Members of the House articulate the views of those in the country and reflect on their concerns. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government, who have in the past two and a half years made such a good start on addressing pensioner issues, will soon introduce proposals to put new life into the state retirement pension.
  4.35 pm
  Mr. Steve Webb: The background to the debate is that, according to the Government Actuary's new report, the national insurance fund is in extremely good health. It has, to use a technical actuarial term, pots of money. It must be the healthiest bank account in Britain. At the end of next year, the fund will have £16 billion, which is double the amount that the law requires it to have to keep benefits going. There is £8 billion spare in the fund, and the Government can spare pensioners 75p a week. That is why we are opposing the uprating orders.
  The Secretary of State paid his customary compliment to the Liberal Democrats when he started his speech by discussing our policy. Clearly, we are the only opposition in town. He asked various rhetorical questions, and we seem to have witnessed the quickest broken promise in new Labour history because, when he was asked whether he would be staying to hear the answers, he assured us that he would, but he has already disappeared. When faced with the possibility of serious argument, the Secretary of State finds that he has other engagements.
  We heard in the Secretary of State's address that the Government are reforming the state earnings-related pension scheme, but their proposals mean that there will be no SERPS. There will be a state flat-rate pension scheme, called the state second pension. When present SERPS entitlements have been honoured, no new
  40
  entitlements will accrue. Yet Labour Members, who are keen to quote the Liberal Democrat manifesto—I understand why they want to do so—said in their manifesto that they would retain SERPS for those who wanted to remain members of the scheme. That is a clear contradiction of a manifesto promise.
  The Secretary of State also described the Government's measures for families with children and other groups. He suggested that, by voting against the motions, we are somehow seeking to scupper those measures. I shall make it absolutely clear: if we are successful in a Division tonight, we will assist the Government's business managers in bringing back motions before the end of this week to bring in all the necessary benefit increases, with improved increases for state pensions.
  These motions, as hon. Members well know, are unamendable. Were it possible to amend only one element of them, we would do so, but the procedures of the House do not allow us to do that. The only way that we can register our objection is to vote against each motion and offer to assist to bring it aback amended.
  The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Hall) made a thoughtful, brave contribution because he articulated the feelings of several of his hon. Friends and of many pensioners in his constituency, and mine. The hon. Gentleman called the 75p increase "meagre" and the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) called it "measly". We are all agreed about its inadequacy. As a new Labour Back Bencher, the hon. Member for Bedford showed courage by making his remarks when the Secretary of State was in the Chamber, and I congratulate him on having the courage to do so.
  The hon. Gentleman called on us to enter into debate constructively. I shall give him an example of an attempt by us to do that, which received no response from his Front-Bench colleagues. When we raised this issue three weeks ago, we said that the 1.1 per cent. benefits increase does not, as the hon. Gentleman said, reflect pensioner cost of living. We can argue whether we should use cost of living or earnings as a measure, and I shall come on to that. However, the figure does not even reflect the pensioner cost of living because of council services, which the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) mentioned then, or rent and council tax rises.
  We suggested a pensioner price index that specifically includes all the things on which pensioners spend their money—a not unreasonable suggestion. Did we receive a constructive response from the Government? Did they mention or look at the idea? The answer is, not as far as we know.
  When we make constructive suggestions that are not especially expensive or involve throwing billions of pounds at the problem—the proposal would favour pensioners some years but not others—we are ignored. That is the difficulty of trying to enter into a constructive debate on the issue.
  I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Havant, who thinks deeply about these issues. Indeed, one could almost call him one of the godfathers of some of our thinking on raising pensions for older pensioners. I am sure that he is proud of his offspring. I have been thinking through the logic of what he says Conservative policy will become—I accept that he does not have a policy yet, but that he has a set of directions in which he wants to move.

  41
  So far, Conservative policy is as follows: price indexation of the basic state pension—putting in the 75p that he said was measly—and more private provision.
  More private provision is irrelevant to those who are already above pension age since they cannot save any more. Therefore, they will receive only the 75p rise. I presume that there would not be an earnings-indexed income support line, because the hon. Member for Havant has consistently condemned the growing gap between the pension and the income support line. If he is to keep the pension pegged to prices and condemn the growing gap, he must raise the poverty line in line with prices. Presumably, therefore, only retail prices inflation would apply to today's poorest pensioners, and that is not even as good as what is offered by the Government in the orders. Although I accept that, in the medium term, he wants to encourage private provision, as, to some extent, do we, I do not understand his policy for present pensioners. I would happily take an intervention if he would like to say what it is.
  Why is there so much money in the national insurance fund; why is it overflowing? This year, national insurance receipts will exceed national insurance expenditure by £1.5 billion. Next year, according to the Government Actuary, the excess will be £2.9 billion. Those are extraordinarily large sums, taking the cumulative surplus to £16 billion by the end of next year, which is double the two months-worth of benefit payments required in statute. There needs to be a little money for a rainy day, but giving pensioners only 75p a week more when there is an extra £8 billion is inadequate.
  As well as the point about the very healthy national insurance fund, there has been a catalogue of delay and dithering at the heart of the Government's pensions policy in four areas. I have a lot of respect for the Pensions Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), who has had the decency to remain in the Chamber to listen to my speech, so I shall be as gentle with him as I can. We are waiting for action, and pensioners are asking what is going on yet, when we ask the Government, they say, "Something will be happening soon," or "There will be something this Parliament."
  The first area, which the hon. Member for Havant mentioned, is capital limits. We have heard excerpts of previous Secretaries of State. At Question Time, I quoted the present Secretary of State who said 12 months ago in this very debate about capital limits and the problem of pensioners who have life savings of £8,000 or more who receive nothing under the minimum income guarantee, that reform is "long overdue." Heaven help us when the Government think that a reform is not urgent if this is what they do when they think that one is.
  The Government have been telling us throughout the Parliament that such reform is long overdue, so perhaps something might be announced in the Budget. After all, and in case hon. Members missed it, the Financial Times said that it would be. I make a prediction on the record: there will be something in the Budget, but it will come into effect not in this April, but in April 2001. What is the significance of that date? First, it allows the Government to re-announce the policy seven times before next April and, secondly, it will come into effect just before the election.
  Mr. Rooker: Twelve times.
  Mr. Webb: The right hon. Gentleman generously admits that there will be a monthly reannouncement.
  42
  Pensioners who have, say, £10,000 in the bank will be deprived of the so-called riches of the minimum income guarantee for another year while the Government spin their policy and get round to deciding what to do. Why should pensioners with life savings of just £8,000 be so deprived?
  The point is not just the absolute cut-off at £8,000, but the extraordinary assumption that, for every £250 of savings, pensioners may receive £1 a week in income. The Minister has the grace to nod at the absurdity. That is £52 a year on £250—more than 20 per cent. net interest. If anyone knows where we can get that rate, please let me know.
  Not only the capital thresholds, but the tariff income—the rate at which income is imputed—needs sorting out. I hope that the Government will not simply promise action in this Parliament, as the Minister did previously. I hope that they will not say that there will be an announcement in the Budget. I hope that the Minister will say that something can be done this April for those pensioners.
  Because of the capital rules, 650,000 pensioners living below the income support poverty line are deprived of the minimum income guarantee. I asked the Government last week to update those figures, and they undertook to let me know the answer. They do not know the present figure. It could have gone up, because the gap keeps increasing.
  There are so many pensioners living below the poverty line who would get the benefit of the pension rise. They are pensioners on less than £78 a week of current income, but they do not get the money because they have £10,000 in the bank.
  Mr. Coaker: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify one point? If he has already covered it, I apologise. We are told that the Liberal Democrats would restore the link with earnings. How much would you raise the pension? Also, if you changed the capital limits and the tariff, how much would you—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying away from the correct parliamentary language.
  Mr. Webb: I shall deal with both questions in the course of my remarks, but I shall certainly give way again if the hon. Gentleman feels that I have not answered them.
  The 650,000 people who miss out are the first group who would get the benefit in full if the pension rise were greater than 75p, as we believe it should be. They are not rich pensioners. They are not company directors who have just retired. They are poor pensioners who have a small nest egg. We are speaking of life savings of £8,000. That is not a sum with which any of us would be satisfied to reach our old age, yet that is the point at which we penalise pensioners.
  What should be done? There is no logical reason for an arbitrary upper capital limit of £8,000. Instead, a realistic income should be imputed from people's capital. If they have huge amounts of capital, a huge amount of income would be imputed, and they would not quality on income grounds. The arbitrary upper limit of £8,000 is not needed. In any case, people with significant amounts of capital have weekly incomes from other sources that put them well beyond the range.

  43
  What is needed is a sensible lower limit, so that pensioners with rather pitiful amounts of life savings are not troubled by the complexities of declaring how much they have in the building society—which is probably the money put by for their funeral, as in a constituency case that I had recently. There should be a sensible lower limit for administrative convenience and a sensible imputation of realistic amounts of income from savings. That is not an unreasonable expectation.
  Apart from the capital limits, on which there has been dither and delay, what about the SERPS entitlement of widows? That is another example of delay and dither. The parliamentary ombudsman is currently investigating whether maladministration occurred, in that people were not told of the cuts to widows' SERPS introduced by the previous Government, of which the present Government also failed to notify them.
  I contacted the ombudsman's office last week to ask where the report was. A report was promised in advance of the cut in widows pension entitlements originally planned for April. The ombudsman is waiting for a Government decision, which would make the report more complete. It is months since the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 was amended, against the Government's will initially, to require them to do something about widows' SERPS.
  We have heard nothing. We read in the press that there are rows between the DSS and the Treasury about how much that will cost. The Treasury proposal of compensation for those who can prove that they made a telephone call in 1987 is absurd. I hope that the Minister is fighting with all his vigour on that issue.
  When will we hear? Pensioners in my constituency who feel that they were misled and mis-sold want to know what is happening. They have retired, some of them are in failing health, and they want security and certainty, but all we get is dither and delay. I hope that the Minister will tell us when an announcement will be made. The Government did not take the opportunity to do so during questions this afternoon. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will do so later.
  At the very least, people who have already retired, or those who are so close to retirement age that they cannot amend their plans, should be fully protected. It would be wrong to tell someone who had already retired, and made the wrong decision through dodgy advice, that the cuts would be delayed for five years, so that if that person expired in the next five years, it would be all right, but if not, it would be tough. Protection for those who have retired, or are about to retire, must be the minimum that is required.
  The third example of dither and delay—
  Mr. Rooker: I am counting because the hon. Gentleman said four, and I was not sure how far we had got.
  I take the hon. Gentleman's point about SERPS. The legislative framework for the 50 per cent. cut from April is in place. It has been included in all the planning for public expenditure and is in the Government Actuary's report because we have not yet made the final decisions. Any changes will therefore change the national insurance
  44
  fund figures dramatically. The hon. Gentleman has already spent that money earlier today when we considered pensions; he is now spending it for a second time. I am counting the number of times he spends the national insurance fund surplus.
  Mr. Webb: The Minister points out that surpluses cannot be spent more than once. Many people make that mistake, and I would not dream of making it. However, recurring surpluses can be spent each year. This year, there was a surplus of £1.5 billion; next year, there will be a surplus of nearly £3 billion. I shall return to the subject later, but the measures that we propose for the basic state pension would initially cost perhaps £500 million a year. That leaves a significant annual surplus, in excess of £1 billion, for which widows' SERPS should be top priority. As the Minister knows, the savings from widows' SERPS build slowly, and it takes some years before they accumulate into a large sum. Husbands and wives are worried now about what is happening.
  The third example of delay and dither is winter fuel payments for men aged between 60 and 64. I have some good news for the Minister. My research shows that, next year, he will be entitled to a payment from the social fund. He was born in June 1941 and, by winter 2001, he will be entitled to a social fund payment. Such is the Government's mastery of pensions strategy that the Minister is entitled to a social fund payment next year as a result of their policies. Yet the Government lecture us on targeting. Their fundamental inconsistency is obvious.
  The Government pay an untargeted £100 across the board; we advocate age-related additions to the basic pension that are much better targeted, yet the Government claim that our policies are not sufficiently well targeted. They cannot have it both ways. Men aged 60 to 64 will receive a winter fuel payment because the Government lost a court case before Christmas. The best part of a couple of months has elapsed, and men aged 60 to 64 are asking me how to get the money. I have to tell them that they must wait for the Government to launch an advertising campaign. I get a hollow laugh when I say that. The money will constitute summer fuel payments at this rate. I hope that the Minister will tell us when he winds up that there will be an announcement soon on how my constituents will receive the money that the Government promised.
  The hon. Member for Bedford made a fair point about the winter fuel payments and the whole package. When the Government had money to spend, they chose to do it through the winter fuel payment, not the basic state pension. The hon. Gentleman said that the basic state pension was withering and dying. I am not sure whether he used those words, but they sum up the spirit of his remarks.
  The winter fuel money has no statutory protection. By law, the pension, as a national insurance payment, must be statutorily uprated every year, at least in line with prices. However, that does not apply to the winter fuel payment. It has increased substantially to £100 but, next year and the subsequent year, it will continue to be the nice round number of £100. Once it has been established, and people get used to it, it will start to be eroded. There is no statutory protection for it. We have not voted for a winter fuel payments Act; the provision has no statutory protection through primary legislation. It is a social fund payment. Governments can introduce and drop such payments at the

  45
  drop of a hat. We have received assurances that the payments will be maintained for an indeterminate period. However, that is not the same as putting them on the same footing as the basic state pension.
  We have considered three examples of dither: capital limits, widows' SERPS and winter fuel. The last one involves the minimum income guarantee take-up campaign. We have been promised action for pensioners, but what did we get on take-up of income support? The Government needed to be seen to be doing something in their first two years while they were sticking to the Tory spending plans and I assume that a civil servant at the Department had the bright idea of carrying out research.
  I addressed the National Pensioners Convention a while ago and when I told 1,500 pensioners that the Government had commissioned research into why people do not take up income support they could not believe it. Do hon. Members know what that research found? That people find income support stigmatising and the forms off-putting and that entitlement is triggered by turning 75 or 80. We could have worked that out by reading the benefit rules. It took two years to reach those findings; we were promised a take-up campaign. It was due to start last April, unless I am very much mistaken, but the delay and dither of the Government's pension policy meant that nothing happened. We have had hints of an announcement today. Perhaps one will be made in the wind-up speech, but who knows? The Minister has so much else on his plate and so much else to dither about.
  Mr. Coaker: Everyone agrees that take-up is a serious matter, but does the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that it is a bit more complicated than that? He should consider attendance allowance, which is non-means-tested. There is a take-up problem with that benefit as well.
  Mr. Webb: The hon. Gentleman is quite right that take-up of that benefit is a serious issue and there is no doubt that it is good that the Department has started to estimate and consider non-take-up, but the research—if I recall correctly—was almost exclusively into non-take-up of income support by pensioners. We did not need that research. As I used to make my living from social research, perhaps I should have said that it should have been undertaken alongside action.
  Mr. Chris Pond: The hon. Gentleman may be doing research again.
  Mr. Webb: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that.
  To give a concrete example of action, half the pensioners who do not take up income support even though they are entitled to it are housing benefit or council tax benefit claimants. In other words, we know where they live. Why should it take the Government three years to launch an advertising campaign or a strategy when we have their names and addresses?
  Mr. Coaker: This is an interesting debate. Has the hon. Gentleman given any thought to why pensioners do not seem to have a problem claiming housing benefit and council tax benefit, which are means-tested, but seem to have a problem claiming income support?
  Mr. Webb: Indeed. One of the main reasons is that most are council tenants. They have contact with officials
  46
  from the public authorities, who have an incentive to get them their entitlement as then the councils will have their rent paid. Local government has such an incentive, but central Government do not as they save hundreds of millions of pounds by not getting those people their money. I do not believe that that is deliberate and genuinely do not believe that the Government keep quiet, but they could do much more. They dither.
  What will happen eventually? I hope that there will be linkage between local authority data and income support and that pensioners who fill in housing benefit forms and are told that they are entitled to a full rent rebate will automatically receive letters telling them that they are entitled to income support. They would have provided the authorities with every bit of information needed to calculate their income support. So much more could have been done years ago, but the Government amble along.
  The classic case is the Secretary of State's ritual nonsense about the state second pension and the mythical person who receives £14 a year under SERPS and will receive £50 a year when the state second pension is introduced. When? In 2047. That is the pace of Government pension reform. I am not asking for the earth, just a bit of speed.
  Mr. Willetts: Like me, the hon. Gentleman follows Ministers' written answers on this subject very carefully. Does he agree that we need citizens charter standards to interpret the various ministerial statements? Widows' SERPS was to have been dealt with "shortly" back in October 1999 and there was to be an announcement on the winter fuel payments mechanisms "early next year" in December 1999. It would be nice to know what "early next year" and "shortly" mean in the Department of Social Security.
  Mr. Webb: I thank the hon. Gentleman.[Interruption] That is an interesting sedentary comment from the Minister: those words mean 7 February. That is intriguing.
  Mr. Rooker: I said that it is only 7 February.
  Mr. Webb: I apologise. In a moment of revelation, I thought that we were to have an announcement, but no.
  While we are on the theme of delay and dither, let me say that housing benefit reform is a classic example. I have lost track of when it was originally supposed to take place, but we now read in The Daily Telegraph that it will take place in July. Even then, it will not be a wholesale reform; it may take three Budgets to introduce it. For goodness sake, what do we pay officials in the Department to do? Surely the Government could tackle some of the issues rather than deferring them for another Parliament, which appears to be their strategy.
  Mr. Rooker: I did not want to say this publicly, but it is the second time the hon. Gentleman has had a go at the officials in my Department. The last time he did so during a debate he called them a bunch of bureaucratic anoraks. These are the people whom I personally asked, at the hon. Gentleman's request, to do a bit of extra work by answering some of his unofficial questions—questions that he could not get on to the Order Paper. I shall think twice about co-operating in that way in future.
  Mr. Webb: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would not afford me any privilege that he would not afford

  47
  another Member; but I withdraw the attack on the officials, and restore the attack on the politicians who are responsible for the policy. The question is, "Why has this taken so long?" We have not had a serious answer to that question.
  At root, this is a debate about next April's benefits, of which the basic state pension is far the largest component. What should be done, given that the Government have an excess of billions of pounds in the national insurance fund? We think that the Government should do two things, as we made clear when the matter was debated a few weeks ago. First, all pensioners should receive an increase that reflects their true cost of living. That is a serious, constructive and relatively inexpensive suggestion, which we have made before but which the Minister has ignored. I hope that he will respond today.
  Mr. McWalter: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should uprate in line with the pensioner index rather than the standard index? It seems that he is. If the pensioner index was lower than the standard index, would he give pensioners less than 75p?
  Mr. Webb: That is a perfectly fair point. Each year, the Government would have to decide whether to use the pensioner price index or the all-items retail prices index. When I am Secretary of State for Social Security, I will opt for the higher figure.
  As I have said, the increase should reflect pensioners' true cost of living. We all know of pensioner costs that are not fully reflected in the retail prices index: local authority costs such as council tax and rent, for instance. The classic example, however, is the mortgage rate, which was falling in the year to September. Such a fall hits pensioners twice. First, it depresses the retail prices index without helping with pensioners' living costs, as most have no significant mortgage, if any mortgage at all. Secondly, it depresses pensioner incomes, which, to a greater or lesser extent, depend on interest rates. If interest rates fall, pensioners' savings incomes fall. Then the Government kick them in the teeth by saying, "As inflation has been low, we shall not give you a pension increase of any note."
  It is all very well to say that next year it will be different—that, as mortgage rates will rise next year, pensioners may receive a bit more. Pensioners must live on the 75p increase for a year; if the council tax eats all that up, what are they expected to live on? They will just have to wait: that is the Government's message to pensioners.
  As for the second thing that should happen, it is not a restoration of the earnings link. I want to make it clear that we are not saying that. We propose across-the-board increases in line with the true cost of living for all pensioners, and a "bigger than earnings link" increase for those over 75. We suggest that the across-the-board increase for older pensioners should be £3 for the over-75s and £5 for the over-80s, and that we should build on that increase.
  The Minister mentioned the help that I had received from his officials in the past. I have been uncharitable, and I withdraw what I said. Over the summer, along with the Secretary of State's assistant, those officials helped me
  48
  to estimate the effects of some of our policies. We were grateful for the opportunity to use the Government's simulation model to cost the policy of increasing the age addition to a serious amount that would grow over time, rather than retaining the pathetic 25p which is frozen in the orders. For the same cost as the state second pension that the Government propose to introduce, we could do vastly more for poorer pensioners, and less for the best off. I am not suggesting any more spending overall. This is not "tax and spend", but—I hate to use the "r" word—redistribution. It is about helping poorer pensioners.
  The problem with all the Government's plans is that they will take years to be implemented and will benefit only the newly retired—who, on average, are the best-off pensioners. Therefore, it will be even more decades before the money reaches the folk who are the poorest. By that time, probably three different parties will have entered and left government and either ripped up or changed the policy, so that we shall never achieve the objective of the policy. We need action that will have an impact now, and that action should be an across-the-board age addition.
  On average, older pensioners are the poorest—but we would not have to means test them to discover whether they are. For reasons that we know, older pensioners are more likely to be women. Older pensioners are also more likely to have retired longer ago, so that their savings will be more depleted and inflation will have eroded more of the real value of any assets. Additionally, lump-sum purchase on a house will have come out of their savings. Widows' entitlement, which many older pensioners receive, is also very poor. The list is endless. However, for those specific reasons, poverty is concentrated among older pensioners.
  Non-take-up of income support is another phenomenon that is concentrated among older pensioners. Two thirds of pensioners who do not claim income support are over 75. By paying across-the-board increases to older pensioners, we shall be getting money to the real poorest pensioners.
  The poorest pensioners are not the ones who claim income support, but the ones who could but do not. Although Liberal Democrat Members support putting money into income support—we do not have a problem with that as a way of helping those who receive it—we believe that that is not sufficient. Action on income support would target some of the poor, but not all of them.
  Our age addition strategy is costed. The cost of our proposals is £500 million, which is only a third of this year's current surplus in the national insurance fund and is barely a fifth of next year's surplus in the fund. Our proposals are not a matter of reckless tax and spend, but costed and measured, to reach the poorest pensioners.
  We need an end to dither and delay. We need action now for pensioners, and the 75p increase does not deliver that action.
  5.7 pm
  Mr. Chris Pond: I am puzzled, having heard the comments of the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), about where the Liberal Democrats stand on social security issues. We have heard not only that they will vote against all the upratings, but that they will subsequently and generously co-operate with business managers to reintroduce all the bits of the motions of which they approve. It is a bit like saying that they will

  49
  run over the school crossing patrol, but will be the first to pick up and dust off the lollipop lady and call for an ambulance. That does not seem to be a terribly responsible approach to really rather serious issues. It also seems to be an example—as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Hall) said—of playing politics with the living standards of people who are often in very serious straits.
  Before this debate, at Social Security Question Time, we had a discussion on progress towards meeting the Government's target of halving child poverty within 10 years and eliminating it within 20 years. We should recognise the significance of the establishment of that target—no previous Government have even acknowledged the existence of poverty in such a manner. Indeed, Secretaries of State in the previous Government told us that poverty did not exist at all. They turned a blind eye not only to those individuals' plight, but to their very existence. The previous Government refused to accept responsibility for tackling the problem.
  As the House well knows, during the Thatcher and Major years, a consequence of turning a blind eye to poverty was that the number of people living in poverty increased from 5 million to 14 million. One quarter of the population were living in poverty. Opposition spokesmen would undoubtedly deny those figures. Indeed—I am saying this slowly, just in case the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) wishes to deny it—when the Government were elected, 14 million of our citizens were living in poverty and 4 million of those citizens were children.
  The Government have set themselves the challenge of dealing with that problem. I assume that Conservative Members' approach to the issue of poverty has changed and that they accept the figures that I have given. However, I shall give way willingly if the hon. Member for Havant wishes to intervene.
  Mr. Willetts: I am sorry, but by increasingly caricaturing the Conservatives' view, the hon. Gentleman has driven me to intervene. The figures that he cites are from the households below average income statistics, which, as he knows, are a relative measure of poverty and were rightly described by a Minister in the Government whom he supports as one picture of many that can be taken of poverty—one snapshot at one moment in time. If people care about poverty, they will want to look at a variety of indicators. That particular one is a dangerous basis for policy. I do not believe that even his Ministers want to use such a basis.
  Mr. Pond: That was the intervention that I was expecting and, indeed, hoping for—the hon. Gentleman ducks behind the suggestion that the measures are wrong and that we need to take a range of different measures before we can address the issues. The fact is that, whatever the measure chosen, the party that he represented refused to accept that poverty existed. If we take a consistent measure, whichever it is, from the huge range from which we could choose, it will be clear that poverty increased dramatically.
  We know that it is not only the poor who suffered through that process. Poverty is not only socially divisive but economically wasteful: it destroys people's ability to use their energies and talents for the common good.
  50
  That is why the Government's target of halving child poverty in 10 years and eliminating it in 20 is significant not only as a social policy objective but as an economic policy objective.
  That is why I welcome the proposed upratings, especially the focus on help to families with children and to the poorest pensioners. The ability of the Secretary of State and his team to pursue that target with any great success simply through benefit upratings has to be limited, however. The upratings can make a real contribution towards that target but will not in themselves enable us to reach the target.
  If spending extra on social security were a means of eliminating or reducing poverty, the Conservative party when in government would have had rather more success than it did, although that was not one of its objectives. We know that spending on social security increased dramatically under previous Governments, but that the number of people in poverty trebled under the Thatcher and Major Administrations. That is why we need to consider the discussions on benefit upratings in the context of the other Government policies to tackle poverty: most important, the creation of jobs—800,000 new jobs have been created since the Government took office—the impact of the new deal, especially on lone parents, people with disabilities, the younger and the long-term unemployed; and the national minimum wage.
  We heard last week that the Conservative party now supports the national minimum wage. For those of us who served on the Standing Committee that considered the National Minimum Wage Bill—which made parliamentary history, I understand, sitting for the longest period ever—and who listened to the Conservative party filibuster and try to kill the national minimum wage, hearing the shadow Chancellor tell us that it was all right now and that the Conservative party would keep it was pleasing in one sense—especially for the 2 million who had the threat hanging over them that, if there were a change of government, they would lose the wage—but irritating in another.
  We are hoping for an announcement—perhaps we will get it during the debate—that a similar U-turn has taken place on the working families tax credit and the child tax credit because the many people who depend on that—1,700 of them in my constituency—the families who are, on average, £24 a week better off, are suffering uncertainty about whether, if there were ever to be a change of government, that help would be removed, too. We need to view the debate in the context of the wider tax and national insurance contribution changes and the provision of affordable child care.
  One important element of the debate concerns capital limits. The hon. Member for Northavon argued that what may be most important about the limits is not the limits themselves, but the assumed income from the capital. I was pleased to receive a fairly positive response from my right hon. Friend the Minister—who did not give much away—and I know that the Government are looking at that matter seriously, as the assumed income is the most dangerous element.
  I am optimistic that the Government's target of achieving the reduction in child poverty, and in poverty generally, can be reached. It is a major challenge, as everyone knows, but we can meet it. The Government have made significant progress in that direction and the

  51
  uprating statement will help us further, as will the other policies to which I have referred. It is a moral, social and economic imperative that we should achieve that objective. Only one thing can stand in the way of our achievement of the objective of halving child poverty in 10 years and eliminating it in 20 years—a change of Government.
  5.16 pm
  Miss Anne McIntosh: One thing that is emerging this evening is that the Secretary of State clearly is not living up to his name—he is not the darling of the pensioners. I wish to express my personal and deep regret at the derisory increase of 75p per week for pensioners, for the reasons given by many hon. Members today.
  I am delighted that at least one successful amendment was passed during the debates on the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill—to abolish the dreaded 75-year rule on annuities for people who take out a stakeholder pension. I invite the Government this evening to extend that exemption to all pensioners: it would give tremendous satisfaction to many of my constituents if the Government would rule out the 75-year age limit once and for all.
  Mr. Rooker: I will take advice if what I am about to say is wrong, but it is my understanding that what the hon. Lady has said is quite wrong. The amendment was passed in the Lords, but was reversed in this House.
  Miss McIntosh: Am I right in understanding that the Government remain unsympathetic to abolishing the rule that all pensioners must take out annuities at 75, regardless of whether they are taking out a stakeholder pension or whether they are existing pensioners?
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Lady heard what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier. The Inland Revenue is leading a review of the issue, to which the Department has input. However, the hon. Lady stated as a matter of fact that the Bill contained an amendment which the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 does not contain.
  Miss McIntosh: I stand corrected, but at least we managed to get the proposal into the Bill. We will have to try harder next time round.
  The Government must accept that, as long as the rule remains in place, the income of 75-year-olds will be reduced from the level for which they had planned. Surely that runs counter to what the Government have said today. The Secretary of State has said that the Government wish to encourage people to save. That alone would provide conclusive evidence that the 75-year rule on annuities should be abolished, as it is hampering people who are planning for their retirement.
  On the vexed question of winter fuel payments, the Minister of State—in answer to me on 10 January—said categorically that
  "everyone who is ordinarily resident in Great Britain and aged over 60 is eligible"—[Official Report, 10 January 2000; Vol. 342, c. 12.]
  and that that applied whether they worked or not. Some of my constituents find it embarrassing to apply, because officials discourage them from applying until the notice has been sent out, and there is unnecessary bureaucracy.
  52
  The Department's press release of 17 December says that help through winter fuel payments will be extended to everyone aged 60 or over, regardless of whether they are claiming a pension, but it appears on closer examination that not everyone of that age is so entitled. For example, not everyone in a residential care or nursing home is covered.
  Mr. Rooker: Or in prison.
  Miss McIntosh: I am coming to that.
  Those in homes are partly covered—280,000 claim some help through income support—but they would not be deemed eligible. The remainder, perhaps another 220,000, should get the payment at a reduced rate on the basis that they are sharing accommodation with other over-60-year-olds.
  Not everyone who has been in hospital for more than 12 months is included, regardless of whether they have maintained their own accommodation to which they would expect to return home, and for which they will presumably have to pay for heating in the cold months even if they are not living there at the time. Those people are excluded from winter fuel payments.
  Pensioners living abroad are certainly not included, as they are deemed not to be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom, which is perhaps fair. The estimated 1,000 people over 60 in prison are most definitely not included; they are not entitled to any social security benefits.
  The payments do not apply to everyone over 60. The catch is that people had to be over 60 on a certain date to qualify. The Benefits Agency is considering precisely what that date should be, but it will probably be about 20 September 1999. Does everyone get £100? No. The payment is supposed to be for a household containing a pensioner, so a one-pensioner household gets £100 and if there are two pensioners they are deemed to receive £50 each, but if there are more than two pensioners in a household, they all get £50. Married men who become eligible will get £50, but some couples could earn £150: if the wife was aged 60 or more and claiming a pension on 20 September last year but the husband was under 65, she will have got her £100.
  Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: The hon. Lady's concern for pensioners living at home with their parents and for expats on the Costa Brava is extremely touching, but do not she and her party oppose the very fact of the £100 bonus in any event?
  Miss McIntosh: We would like to be in keeping with the law of the land and, where that law pertains to the European Union, we would probably have introduced the legislation sooner and caused much less concern to the constituents who are caught by it.
  The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond) mentioned comments made by our newly appointed shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo), who also said last week that we face a serious brain drain. One category being directly affected by the rules at this time of year includes those people who are caught by another press release: IR35. My advice to constituents would be to subscribe to every single press release from every single Department to find out exactly how they will be covered by tax or social security provisions.

  53
  IR35 covers those who are by definition self-employed and do not have one permanent employer, but who—by the admission of the Paymaster General—will have slammed on to them for the first time a massive national insurance contribution. It would be deeply regrettable if that category of people were to up sticks and leave the United Kingdom because of IR35. Perhaps the Government will see fit to reverse their provisions this evening or in next month's Budget.
  Valerie Davey: Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?
  Miss McIntosh: I am moving on now. The Secretary of State clearly stated this evening that it was the Government's wish to reduce child poverty, but only 30,000 of those lone parents who responded successfully to the Government's new deal for lone parents—only 5.9 per cent. of single parents invited to join the scheme—actually got jobs in the first full year, which ran from October 1998 to October 1999. Some 104,000 attended interviews, half of whom were mothers whose children were still too young but who had volunteered to join the scheme. That means that some 470,000 single parents on benefits with children over five are still eligible to join. I have heard no suggestions from the Government this evening that would reduce that figure, and the scheme has been singularly unsuccessful in achieving its aims.
  Mr. Pond: The latest figures suggest that 112,000 went for interview from October 1998, and that 89 per cent. decided to take up one of the options available and to participate in the new deal for lone parents. Does that not suggest that lone parents have a more generous approach to the new deal than does the hon. Lady?
  Miss McIntosh: My understanding is that I have given the most recent figures. As I mentioned earlier, more than 50,000 of those single parents whose children are still too young are desperate to get on the scheme, but they do not actually qualify.
  The Government have failed to address the problem of child poverty. The new deal has proved a failure at removing a category of people from welfare dependency and that is to be regretted. The orders laid before us this evening are unsatisfactory and do not go far enough.
  5.27 pm
  Mr. Vernon Coaker: I was interested to note that the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) said in her opening remarks that she opposed the increase of 75p in the basic state pension, because she disagrees with her Front-Bench colleagues on that point. They reaffirmed only a few minutes ago that that was not the policy of the Conservative party. I hope that the hon. Lady will point out that difference in any literature she sends to the pensioners in her constituency.
  As always, the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) made an interesting speech, but I was disappointed that he homed in on pensions and ignored some of the other uprating measures in the orders. The debate tonight has shown that the debate about social security is becoming more mature. The social security orders show the determination of the Government to move away from a
  54
  welfare state that encourages dependency to one that is more proactive and starts to tackle some of the problems of social exclusion.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond) made the important point that it is argued that the way to tackle poverty is to put £5 on this benefit or £8 on that benefit, which may give rise to significant short-term popularity. We cannot take people out of poverty simply by paying them more in benefits. In many respects, the payment of benefits is seen to be everything in the culture of the welfare state, and other policies have not been considered in the round. I realise that the amounts of benefit are important, but it is misguided to argue that they are the way to tackle poverty. We need a greater debate about welfare reform in general, and it is in that context that the uprating orders should be considered.
  Mr. Webb: The hon. Gentleman makes a thoughtful and intelligent comment. For people of working age, what he says is obviously true. But for 80-year-old pensioners, welfare-to-work is irrelevant, and so are most things apart from cash income. The basic state income is not a handout but an entitlement. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is a good mechanism for helping such people?
  Mr. Coaker: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair comment. My point is that the Government's policy of targeting the poorest pensioners for help is the right way forward, and addresses the issue of raising the income of people who need it. As the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, there are age-related additions to the minimum income guarantee. It is not a flat rate that is paid to people at the age of 65 and then remains the same—it rises. In my view, that answers the hon. Gentleman's point about the need to provide more income for today's pensioners.
  My general point is that the debate is about not just pensions but a whole range of other issues. We should not consider the social security uprating orders in isolation; the Government are introducing a range of reforms and measures to attack the issue. I refer to the new deal, the minimum wage, the working families tax credit and a whole range of other measures to tackle social exclusion, reduce dependency and drive home the attack on poverty that is so important.
  This is a difficult debate to engage in, and no doubt many hon. Members who meet pensioners in their constituencies, as I do in mine, will agree. I believe that the Government's policy to target resources on the poorest pensioners is absolutely right. The problem with this debate is that it regards pensioners as a homogenous group of people. That is the myth that drives social policy in this area, and it is not true. Pensioners are not a homogenous group; they are not even, as was the case a few years ago, the poorest group in society. Some pensioners are rich and prosperous, there is a middle group and there are poor pensioners. We must ensure that we do something to address the needs of different groups of pensioners. The Government are attempting to do that, and this debate is starting to do it.
  For the more prosperous pensioners, the Government's attempts to help by providing tax cuts on their income and on much of their savings will produce a real increase in income. I remind the House that people who have large occupational pensions, or who have occupational pensions at all, have them at cost to the state. While they have been

  55
  accruing their occupational rights, they have paid lower rates of national insurance than other people, and so have their employers. That is quite right, because it has been part of an attempt to encourage people to have occupational pensions. We have made concessions for richer pensioners.
  The minimum income guarantee is about trying to help those who are particularly poor, many of whom are pensioners. I am sick of seeing poverty among pensioners. I passionately believe that it is not necessarily right to give an across-the-board increase to all pensioners, because I want more money that would go to rich pensioners to go instead to the poor. That argument is not popular, and many of us have been attacked for defending that principle. However, the new Labour Government were elected to help the poorest, and we do not deny our roots by arguing that case. It is fully consistent with the values of the Labour party to say that we must give more income to those who struggle desperately to make ends meet.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State discussed the huge increases of, for single pensioners, £8, and, for couples, £12.60. If that represents for poorer pensioners a bigger increase than they would have received from an across-the-board rise, I am in favour of it. That is absolutely right. I do not want to be seen as a sycophant, but I should add that we cannot do everything at once. The changes before us are part of a package, and I am convinced that the Government's forthcoming policy announcements will address justifiable concerns affecting the middle group of pensioners over the coming year.
  The hon. Member for Northavon and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham said that we need to examine capital allowances. I am confident that the Government will produce proposals to do something about allowances which have not been changed since 1998. In addition, I am sure that the Government will consider disregards relating to small occupational pensions and their effects on the minimum income guarantee.
  It is surely right to target money on those in the most desperate poverty. I do not believe it wrong for a Labour Government to tell prosperous people who have benefited from occupational pensions and well-paid jobs that our priority is the poorest pensioner. We must get extra money to those who are trying desperately to make ends meet. If that means targeting help, that is what we must do.
  We should remind all pensioners of exactly what the Government have done. We have reduced value added tax on fuel; introduced winter fuel payments; restored free eye tests; and granted free television licences for those aged over 75. We must move away from the "Yes, but" culture that says, "Yes, you have done this, but what about that?" The Government are making real progress with pension reforms. They are trying to get more money to the poorest pensioners and to achieve a fairer deal for pensioners across the board.
  Over the year to come, we shall see real reductions in the prices that pensioners pay for gas, electricity and water, and they will make a real difference.
  The Government have a good story to tell on pensions; it may be a difficult one in some respects, but it is one of which we can be proud. There is nothing wrong with a
  56
  Labour Government saying that they stand up for the poorest people and that they are trying to target resources on them. That is true to the principles and values that the Labour party has held since it was formed.
  Mr. Patrick Hall: Will my hon. Friend comment on the situation facing those pensioners whose income is not far above income support rates and who have a small occupational pension? I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me, will have met such people; they are not the wealthy pensioners to whom he has referred. How should their concerns be addressed in the long term? Of course, they sometimes do not have a long time.
  Mr. Coaker: My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, although I thought that I had addressed the fact that there is a middle group of pensioners for whom we need to consider such issues as capital allowances. We need to consider those matters because small occupational pensions take people just above income support, thus excluding them from entitlement to benefit. However, if we raise the point at which an occupational pension allows people to claim an income support top-up, another group of people will fall into that category. Nevertheless, the point is too low at present and the Government should consider the matter.
  I am confident that the Government will consider capital allowances and occupational pensions as part of their reform package. The fundamental thrust of my remarks is that, if the choice is whether or not a Labour Government should direct resources to the poorest pensioners—even if that means difficult decisions—it is right to give those resources. I do not support a flat-rate increase for every pensioner irrespective of wealth, property or income; I support ensuring that those at the bottom, who are desperately poor, have resources poured towards them so that we make a real difference to the poverty in which they have lived for years. As a Labour Government, remaining true to Labour principles, we can make a real difference to them.
  Other points relate to the radical nature of social security reform in its wider context. The Government Actuary's report is not a document that I usually read on Sunday nights, although I did so yesterday evening, which says a lot about me. The report is interesting; it describes many of the Government's reforms. For example:
  "Entitlement to Maternity Allowance has been extended to include employed pregnant women who earn between the maternity threshold … and the lower earnings limit."
  They were previously excluded from claiming the allowance.
  The document notes that maternity benefit for self-employed women will be increased by 15 per cent.
  "to bring their benefit in line with employed women."
  Such changes are being made throughout the social security system; they seem small, but they affect the quality of life for many people. They show what the Government have been doing.
  Under the uprating order, child benefit will be uprated from £14.40 to £15 for the first child, with an uprating of £10 for second and subsequent children. Is it not a sign of a radical Government, who are determined to do something for children, that the main benefit to support families, which is paid to mothers, has increased by 36 per cent. since we took power? That is a huge increase for families with children.

  57
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, if we add that increase to all the other changes and reforms that the Government are making, they show that the Government are ensuring that child poverty is attacked and that they are doing their utmost to eradicate it.
  It must be desperately disheartening for us all when we see children living in poverty and lacking the opportunities that we would want for all children. The child benefit reforms and the child care tax reforms will be made in April 2001. The sure start schemes and a variety of other things make an important statement about the way that we intend to attack child poverty and rid our society of that stigma.
  The hon. Member for Vale of York said that the new deal—another part of our welfare reform programme—was a failure. I do not think that it is a failure at all. I am proud to say that it is one of the most fundamental and radical reforms that any Government have made: to declare that, instead of abandoning people on the dole and forgetting all about them, we shall attack the problems that they face and engage with some of the people who have the most difficult problems, to bring them back into the work force.
  If we want people to be brought out of poverty, we must get people back into work, and tucked away in the document by the Government Actuary's Department are reforms to the national insurance scheme and the lower earnings limit to try to make work pay. If those reforms are placed alongside some of the other measures—such as the new 10p starting rate of income tax—they show that the Government are making real efforts to align the national insurance rates and national insurance thresholds with the rates at which people start to pay income tax. That is real radical reform—real change—to ensure that work pays and that the people who, for so long, have been socially excluded are brought back into the workplace.
  I remind my right hon. Friend the Minister of State—as did the hon. Member for Vale of York and others—that the issue of SERPS remains. I hope that the Government will make an announcement on it in the near future, although I noted the contents of paragraph 7 on page 4 of the report by the Government Actuary's Department, which I was reading on Sunday night.
  I shall finish with a couple of other points. The first concerns the Conservative party position, which is incredible; I am sure that local Conservatives in my constituency and elsewhere are not aware that the official Conservative position on the basic state pension is exactly the same as ours. Indeed, the hon. Member for Vale of York is not even aware of the official position of the Conservative Front-Bench team. I am pleased that the Conservative position on the uprating of the basic state pension is exactly the same as the Labour Government's position. I hope that the fact is widely reported.
  Secondly, I refer to page 8 of the report by the Government Actuary's Department, to show how complex these issues are. It is all very well for people to say, "We will attack social security spending and reduce it." I appreciate that the document deals with national insurance benefit payments, but the vast majority of national insurance benefit payments and the vast majority of social security payments are to do with pensions; and anyone who talks about reducing social security spending is, by implication, attacking social security spending on pensioners and on pensions. It makes a good soundbite,
  58
  but the reality is that the vast majority of social security spending is spent on pensioners, and the bar graph on page 8 of the report shows that, although it sounds good as a piece of rhetoric, it is a ridiculous thing to say, given the economics of benefit payments and welfare reform.
  I conclude by repeating that today's debate is crucial, because there is a growing feeling—almost a consensus—that the welfare state as it exists is failing. It is failing because, if it is not reformed, the people who are poor today will be poor in another 10 years, their children will be poor and their grandchildren will be poor. If it is unpopular to say some of the things that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State are saying—if it is unpopular to say some of the things that are needed to bring about reform—that unpopularity is a price worth paying to know that, in 10 or 20 years' time, some of those people who would have been poor will not be poor, as a result of the difficult decisions that we are taking today.
  5.49 pm
  Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker); I know him well. He has made a good speech and his commitment on this subject is not in question. He spoke passionately about the need for the Government—in fact, all of us—to try to do better for people beyond retirement age who are on a low income; I support him in that. However, he faces a dilemma when he meets pension groups, and I understand and sympathise with him. They do not necessarily disagree with the need to target resources but pensioners tell me that they have paid national insurances contributions all their lives and that they were given an undertaking that they would be looked after. I do not wish to make a party political point—whom they blame is a matter for them—but they believe that the state undertaking has been broken. That is the nub of their argument.
  It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to be passionate about attacking the problems faced by those on low incomes, but the only discernable direction in which the Government are going is towards more means-testing of benefits. Means-tested benefits certainly include an aspect of targeting, but the hon. Gentleman knows enough about the subject to understand that all sorts of disadvantages—some covert and some blindingly obvious—are attached to a policy that is rooted in means-testing. In the long term, they are a massive disincentive to saving. If the hon. Gentleman is anything like me, he will have been made aware of that problem in the meetings that he has had with pensioners. Such benefits also have a negative effect on work incentives, they create poverty traps and, worst of all, take-up and eligibility are massive problems.
  The hon. Gentleman is right to be passionate about helping those who need help most. However, if the Government use the one-club strategy of means-tested benefits, they will come across real difficulties that, sooner or later, will have to be addressed. Nevertheless, I concede that he made a powerful contribution to the debate.
  I am very nervous about the fact that we do not spend enough time considering the national insurance contributory system. I know that that makes me sound a bit like old Labour, and I am sorry about that. The Social

  59
  Security Committee is considering the contributory system, and I know that it is not easy to modernise it. I do not underestimate the importance of the £100 winter payment for pensioners, because it is an important universal payment. However, the Government appear to be heading to more and more means-tested benefits and, by default, the House seems to be content to follow them. We must make sure that we do not do that without thinking about the issues carefully.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I am pleased that the Social Security Committee is examining the role of national insurance, but, while it is doing that, could it not examine the employment patterns that are emerging in this country? Very few people remain with a single employer for long and many women change employers frequently and often do not build up an occupational pension, a stakeholder pension or even sufficient national insurance contributions. The pensioners who retire today are, in some ways, the best-off that there have ever been, whereas some people in their 30s and 40s will, in 20 years time, be among the worst-off that there have ever been.
  Mr. Kirkwood: That is a fair point. Indeed, earlier, the Secretary of State said that changing work patterns, part-time work and stints of employment sometimes make it more difficult to build up a contributions record. It is not as easy now as it used to be. However, the Select Committee will consider all these issues and will try to come up with ideas on how to modernise the contributory system.
  Mr. Pond: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, especially as I had to nip out for a couple of moments to make a telephone call. When I came back, I heard him make a point about the direction of Government policy, which he believes is almost wholly in the direction of means-testing. However, I ask him to consider other universal benefits as well as the £100 winter payment. For example, there has been the biggest-ever increase in child benefit, which is one of the most important universal benefits, and the state second pension will contract people in as though they were earning £9,000 a year. In many other areas, people are being contracted in to the national insurance system. Surely that suggests that the jury is out on whether the Government are moving in the direction of means-testing or universality.
  Mr. Kirkwood: The jury is out; I shall settle for that. The Select Committee will soon journey to Australia to study these issues. The Australian system has gone almost exclusively in the direction of means-testing, and I hope that our examination of the system there will inform our report. I hope that hon. Members will consider it seriously when it is published. This debate should be considered in the longer-term context of what is happening to the national insurance system.
  My other slight worry—again, the Select Committee has done some work on this—is about the wholesale introduction of tax credits. In many ways, there are positive aspects to them, but witnesses to the Select Committee inquiry expounded on the problems that they entail. They told us about problems such as whether money should be paid into the wallet or the purse and
  60
  they referred to the increased potential for fraud and collusion and to the difficulties of administration. The full extent of the difficulties will become apparent only from this April, when employers start paying the working families tax credit, and the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) was right to raise some questions about that. I share his doubts.
  The working families tax credit is only the start. We already know that there will be an earnings credit, an integrated child credit and I believe that we shall ultimately have some form of housing benefit tax credit. A whole panoply of reform and change is taking place, and I do not suggest that it is all bad. However, we must be careful that we understand where it will all lead.
  The general economic context is important to the debate. I recognise that much interdepartmental working has taking place since the election, and that is positive. The Government's emphasis on trying to encourage work is absolutely right, although I have quibbles about some details. The policy is working well, but that may have something to do with the economic cycle. If there is a downturn, it will be interesting to see whether—I hope it will—the policy continues to work and to be successful. However, the Government are right to focus heavily on trying to encourage people into work and to make work pay. We are all aware of what they have done in that regard.
  However, I want to add one important qualification. The adage is "Security for those who can't", and the Government have a long way to go before they persuade me that they are providing that security. I do not want to make too much of this point, but the emphasis that the Government have rightly put on getting people into work risks stigmatising those who can never work. There are many reasons why people cannot ever work, and they include chronic sickness and their geographical location. The labour market in Garscadden in downtown Glasgow is very different from that in Northampton or Reading. Welfare to work may operate well and supply-side measures may train people to become better qualified to compete in the labour market. However, if the labour market has collapsed, it is wrong to stigmatise those who cannot find work and suggest that they are not pulling their weight. We must be careful about that.
  If people who cannot take advantage of the world of work have to rely on the core level of income support benefits, the level of those benefits needs to be seriously considered. In that regard, my indefatigable noble Friend Earl Russell managed to obtain written answers to questions asked in the other place. They looked at income support as expressed as a percentage of average earnings for a variety of income groups. The figures will not be a surprise to the Minister or to the rest of the House, but they reinforce a point about the core level of benefits in relation to average earnings and about what people are expected to live on.
  A single person aged 18 to 24 is expected to live on 10.15 per cent. of average earnings. Another example is a single parent with one child under 11 who is expected to survive on 21.78 per cent. of average earnings. The highest figure is in the example of a couple with two children aged 13 and 16—expensive teenagers—who are expected to live on 37.76 per cent. of average earnings.
  It is perfectly reasonable to expect people who are in transition to go through a period when they live on a third of average earnings, even if they have expensive

  61
  teenagers. However, the figures for households with below-average earnings show that some families with children have been living at those benefit levels for seven years. Some 11 per cent. of families are in that position. Significant numbers of families are living for long periods at that level of income disadvantage compared with average earnings.
  What is income support for? If it is only to be a bridge to a better benefit, such as welfare to work, that is fine. One can survive on income support for six months or perhaps a year, but then the washing machine or another substantial item of household machinery goes wrong and has to be replaced. A downward spiral then begins, as the Acheson report and the earlier Black report demonstrated when they discussed the problem of levels of benefit leading to a bad diet and poor health and housing. I worry that the current core rates of income support for the long-term unemployed client group are inadequate, and we should carefully consider that matter.
  Mr. Webb: My hon. Friend made an important point about the poverty of people who are on benefits for a long period. He will know that the old supplementary benefit system had a higher long-term rate. Does he accept that there is a problem in increasing people's benefits when they have stayed on benefits long enough to qualify for the higher rate? Does he have an answer to that paradox?
  Mr. Kirkwood: No. That is an enormous problem. If people get more money after they have been on benefits for five years, they may be tied more tightly into the benefits system. I am certainly not saying that any of this is easy.
  My hon. Friend made a sensible suggestion about introducing a special pensioner index. We should also consider more carefully the work done by the family budget unit. We should think about what a minimum income should be, because income support levels do not reflect the needs of a family. The family budget unit has used its own resources to do extremely valuable work and it has tried to work out what a modest but adequate income would be. I support that work, and I hope that the Government will study it.
  None of the official statistics properly reflect the level of indebtedness of many of the households that I come across. It is all very well to specify income levels on which people are expected to support themselves, but we must recognise that many people have store cards and credit cards and some regrettably are even in debt to loan sharks. Even with an average income, they would struggle to get through the next two or three years. They cope by working from week to week, on a cash basis, and by robbing Peter to pay Paul. To do that year in, year out is debilitating and causes immense stress. That is the principal reason for the high level of family break-up in this country, which is worse than that in other European nations. Not enough is being done to deal with that problem.
  I turn now to the promotion of entitlement to benefits. I wonder what it would cost to impose a duty on the Benefits Agency to maximise people's entitlement to benefit. I recognise that the administration is under a lot of pressure and that it has a big budget and an amazing task to do and that the staff do a very professional job in delivering benefits. However, claimants would be more
  62
  confident that they were dealing with people who were on their side if they knew that agency staff had a duty not merely to respond to questions about entitlement to a particular benefit, such as severe disablement allowance, but to point out potential entitlement to housing benefit or council tax benefit, if that were obvious to them.
  The Benefits Agency should have a statutory duty to use its best endeavours to ask questions of all claimants and to maximise their benefits. At the moment, that does not happen. I do not know what additional administrative costs would be involved, but if the agency were told to do that, it would have to do it. The House should seriously consider that proposal.
  I turn now to housing benefit reform. If one assumes that all the welfare-to-work reforms are right and are working as well as they can, housing benefit would then be the biggest outstanding hurdle in preventing most people from getting off benefit and into work. There is no easy solution, but the issue is urgent. Pressure groups and others who follow these matters are beginning to express dismay about the delay in the Government even suggesting options that we could consider.
  It is the Social Security Committee's intention to consider housing benefit. We would have much preferred to wait for the contents of the Green Paper, which would have given us something to work on, but we cannot. The publication date now seems indefinitely postponed, so we shall go ahead and do our best without the Green Paper.
  Mr. Corbyn: I am pleased that the Select Committee will consider housing benefit. Will it look beyond the question of fraud and benefit tapers to the benefit's overall costs, including administrative costs, particularly in inner urban areas, where rents are sky high because of deregulation under the previous Government?
  Mr. Kirkwood: I confess that, coming from a relatively rural area, I was staggered to learn from some Labour members of the Select Committee about problems in areas such as the hon. Gentleman's constituency and about rent levels. One could acquire a modest estate in Roxburghshire for some of the rents being paid for single room flats here in London.
  Mr. Corbyn: Give me the address.
  Mr. Kirkwood: If anyone is interested, I will provide contracts for estate agents after the debate.
  Housing benefit is a problem that needs to be addressed seriously, and I hope that the Select Committee report will make a positive contribution to that.
  Prompted by the earlier intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), I remind the House in passing that the old supplementary benefit system used to contain an element to take into account water and sewerage charges. I do not know whether this is true for the rest of the country, but some of the increases in water charges in Scotland are swingeing, and there is no accommodation for that or for the costs of increased sewerage charges in the current income support system. We need to look into that.
  I am also coming to the conclusion that the council tax property bandings militate against the poor much more than they used to do. A recent report from the New Policy Institute starkly demonstrated that the incidence of council

  63
  tax benefit was prejudicing people on very low incomes in modest accommodation. We need to consider that problem.
  I shall not dwell on capital limits because my hon. Friend and others have referred to them. It is high time that the Government dealt with those limits, which penalise saving. They were last revised in 1988, so change is a long time coming. Earnings limits also cause me concern because they penalise work. I shall give the Minister two examples, which are always cropping up in my constituency surgery. The first is the therapeutic earnings limit for severe disablement allowance and incapacity benefit, which is now set at £58. That is too low if one believes that it is important to try to encourage people into work. That earnings limit could be increased modestly, but regularly. The same is true of the situation facing carers. The earnings limit for invalid care allowance is £50—below the lower earnings limit for the national insurance system. Surely increase to such earnings limits should be addressed in these orders.
  The parental leave proposal will have an important social impact. The orders do not directly address the issue, but the Select Committee reported on it. Before the inquiry, I was very sceptical about making such leave paid, but there is overwhelming evidence that the Government's proposal is likely to be useless and irrelevant without some form of payment. Payment would help enormously, bind family groups and assist in meeting some of the Government's other perfectly proper social targets. I hope that that will be considered urgently.
  Although I am intrinsically against rejecting orders such as these, I support my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon. If I were Secretary of State—we are all playing Social Security Secretary in this debate—I could not in all conscience simply valorise these pension increases. I would double them because pensioners were led to expect a return for the national insurance contributions that they made. The Minister gave me a bit of criticism for being a little superficial about the £16 billion, but it is a lot of money. If we cannot increase pension upratings by more than 1.1 per cent. against the background of a massive £16.6 billion surplus, when will we ever give such increases a little consideration?
  Such consideration could have been justified by the argument that it is necessary to discharge the duty and liability that was undertaken under the national insurance scheme. My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, if he divides the House, I shall—very unusually on this subject—be happy to follow him into the Lobby. These are wholly exceptional circumstances. It is impossible successfully to argue in front of a group of retired people that a 75p increase is right in the circumstances. The House should respond in the way in which my hon. Friend suggests.
  I should like to say a word about overseas pensioners. I know that the Minister of State receives the same e-mails as I do from Canada, Australia and other exotic places. When the Select Committee visits Australia, I have no doubt that we shall spend much of our time dodging pensioners whose pensions have not been uprated for many years.
  I am not advocating immediately finding the £400 million or £500 million that it would cost to put things right. However, it is contrary to natural justice to
  64
  leave such pensioners languishing without any uprating consideration. Something should be done—even if we give them only a small amount this year. I am arguing not for gesture politics but for a recognition of an honourable commitment that pensioners look to us to fulfil. I am disappointed that hon. Members who usually take an interest in these debates are not present this evening to continue to support that case.
  I am not saying that we are short of reform or that the Government are not doing anything but, as well as the delay to which my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon referred, there is piecemeal approach to social security policy, especially for those who cannot reasonably be expected to work. I want the Government seriously to consider that. I welcome public service agreements and all the other performance indicators that the Government have set out at length, because they will be helpful in trying to measure performance.
  I am generally IT-friendly, but even I am worried about the impact of ineffective computer systems on the delivery of benefit mechanisms. I do not need to tell the Minister that. The Child Support Agency computer system and NIRS2 are causing problems, and the working families tax credit might cause some computer problems as well. If implemented properly, computerisation can help, but much more work needs to be done.
  If the Minister takes anything from this debate from me, I hope that it is that those who cannot reasonably be expected to work should receive greater consideration. I would be happier if that consideration were undertaken in a coherent framework of modernisation of the national insurance contributory system.
  6.15 pm
  Mr. Tony McWalter: I shall evaluate the orders from the perspective of those of my constituents who have a very strong sense that a major injustice has been visited on them, considering the extent to which it is fair of them to think that and what can be done about it. Their sense of injustice is, of course, partly because of the 75p uprating. Many have also contributed to an occupational pension and saved all their lives, but feel that they are getting precious little in return. One might add some stuff about long-term care and worries about how savings and occupational pensions will not protect pensioners in that difficult area.
  I differ significantly from the Liberal Democrats' stance on the 75p increase, although I was tempted by one idea that came out in debate across the Floor of the House. Pensioners seem worried not so much about the precise amount of the increase but that it represents an erosion of their living standard. Even if there were a pensioner index and that produced a 78p uprating, pensioners might not be satisfied with it, but they would not have such a sense of erosion—however small. Their perception is that they have contributed to the fund throughout their working lives but year on year it entitles them to—however little—less.
  The Government should seriously take on board such structural matters in the orders, although I realise that structural matters cannot be part of this debate. A separate pensioner index could address the sense of injustice, but it might lead some time down the road to upratings of less than the rate of inflation. I therefore agree with what eventually emerged in Liberal Democrat policy on

  65
  the hoof: we should take the greater of the two figures and allow pensioners to share in the country's improving wealth, but not if it led to an alarming rate that might generate inflation.
  From talking to my pensioner constituents, I have found that some would be perfectly happy with an increase of, say, £16—a nice big figure—even though it might result in inflation raging at the levels sometimes witnessed under the Conservative party in the late 1980s. The Government, in fact, are keeping inflation down for pensioners; they are maintaining the erstwhile purchasing value of pensioners' savings. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot lament the low increase and suggest a much bigger one without considering the inflationary consequences and the threat of derailment of a well-managed economy, from which pensioners benefit. That is important. If a marginal change in structure were accepted by the Government for future orders, we could tackle the feeling of anger on the part of some pensioners that the system leads to the unjustifiable lowering of their standard of living in some years.
  However, the Government have not left the matter in limbo. They have targeted the poorest pensioners by including the minimum income guarantee. We all know the difficulties involved in getting people to claim that. They feel reluctant to do so, and the barriers in the way of claiming it are substantial. The Government are committed to lowering those barriers and making it much easier for people to claim the minimum income guarantee.
  That could have been done more easily if the increase were a nice round figure. It is much more difficult to publicise a sum consisting of some pounds and some odd pence than a round sum such as 80 quid. Everyone can understand that. A simple headline figure, slightly larger than the Government propose, would assist publicity. People would focus on the £80, rather than on the 75p. That would get over the idea that a single pensioner cannot be expected to live on the new pension level of £67.50.
  A marginal change in the minimum income guarantee to a round figure that was easily publicised would help us all. We have all tried to get across to people what that figure is, how much difference it could make to their lives and what improvement it could provide.
  When dealing with some of the other anomalies in the system, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), who is no longer with us, mentioned three categories of pensioners—rich, in the middle or poor. That is not a sufficiently fine-grained distinction. I would divide them into four quartiles.
  Pensioners in the third and fourth quartiles have under-average earnings. It is important to deal with not only the poorest—those in the fourth quartile—but those with under-average earnings, who may have ploughed a great deal of energy and effort into trying to build up an occupational pension and savings, in the third quartile, where much of the feeling of injustice resides.
  That is where a huge number of anomalies in the current system exist. As we increase the minimum income guarantee—rightly—by more than the level of earnings and by more than the level of headline inflation, we nudge ever closer to the incomes of people who have put by all their lives and are now above income support levels, but have standards of living below income support levels.
  66
  If, under the new figures, the income of those pensioners is £80, they cannot claim income support, so in my patch, for example, they cannot claim a Dacorum travel card for cheaper travel on the buses, and various other benefits that follow from being on income support. The sense of injustice may be heightened, unless we take more specific account of those on modest occupational pensions.
  We have also heard about the threshold for savings. I know that that is under review. It must be addressed, as it compounds the sense that pensioners are being treated unjustly. From the Opposition Benches we heard a spectacular figure for the amount of savings needed to generate income support. A reasonable figure for savings is about £12,000, which would provide a top-up to the basic pension. The interest on £12,000 would take the income a little above income support level—not the £49,000 suggested from the Opposition Front Bench.
  That figure was arrived at by compounding all income support, not just income support for pensioners. That would produce an average of £60 a week, but it is not relevant to the present debate.
  We must recognise pensioners' sense of injustice and belief that they are not being treated fairly. In some ways, that sense of injustice is erroneously directed. If the increase is low, it is because we have kept inflation low and we have tried to allow pensioners to benefit from a well-managed economy. However, many other aspects of the system need change, such as the threshold and the provision for capital allowances.
  There is a perception among pensioners that they must go cap in hand to claim the income support top-up. We must get across the idea that those who receive that money deserve it and have earned it. We must make it clear that we understand that £67.50 is not full recompense for their contributions throughout their working life. We need to change people's attitude to that money, and we could do that through the publicity campaign that has been discussed, but such a campaign would be more successful if the headline figure were £80, not £78-odd.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will regard my remarks as constructive. I commend the many improvements in the orders. Some of the criticisms being levelled against us are unfair, but some of the underlying structures need careful fine-tuning if we are to avoid the sense among pensioners that the Government are willing to visit injustice upon them. That perception is unfair, and I hope that it will be dispelled by the time that the changes are introduced next year.
  6.27 pm
  Mr. Andrew George: I follow the constructive contribution of the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) by drawing attention to the theme of the debate—targeting the poorest, and how best we can do that. That is largely a technical matter. We may disagree on policy, but we on the Liberal Democrat Benches do not question the Government's intention.
  In my brief contribution, I shall deal with take-up, following an earlier intervention from the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), whom I welcome back to the debate. We are discussing not merely an increase of 75p a week in the basic state pension but, according to the Government Actuary's report, a low increase of 1.1 per cent. across the board—for example, in jobseeker's allowance.

  67
  Personal benefit for those aged 18 to 24 will increase from £40.70 to £41.35, an increase of 65p, and personal benefit for those aged 25 and over will increase by 80p. Incapacity benefit will increase by 65p. We have not done justice to the fact that there are groups other than pensioners who face relatively low increases in benefit income.
  The Government rightly want to find mechanisms to encourage people into work and off benefit. In the context of housing benefit, we are considering not simply those who are unemployed, but those who are in work on low incomes. They sometimes have the opportunity to do overtime, or to improve themselves, but the housing benefit system provides little incentive for them to do that. Several hon. Members have commented on the fact that the steepness of the tapers adds to severe social problems.
  My constituency includes people on some of the lowest incomes in the land. Many people are already employed, but find that taking up overtime is hardly worth their while. For example, a constituent recently told me that doing overtime as a school cleaner because of another member of staff's illness was hardly worth while. Newspapers report today that there is some debate between the Department of Social Security and the Treasury about the possibility of an announcement on tapers. Such an announcement would be welcome. It would be helpful to hon. Members who take a deep interest in the matter if the Minister could throw any light on the press speculation.
  I want to consider the take-up of disability benefits. A recent Government report shows an underspend in disability benefits of £754 million last year. That is greater than the effect of the cut in incapacity benefit for which the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 provides. Earlier, the hon. Member for Gedling referred to concern about the take-up of attendance allowance. Why is there no take-up campaign? The Government said that they were worried about the low take-up of income support generally. That applies especially to those who are elderly and disabled. Those who are eligible should claim attendance allowance. However, Government research shows that between 40 and 60 per cent. of eligible applicants claim. That means that a potentially large group does not. The figures are vague, but almost half of those who are eligible for attendance allowance do not claim it.
  It is worth stressing that we are considering not only the poorest of the poor but those who are especially socially excluded: those who have neither the income nor the ability to go out. A recent Government report drew attention to that. The Government claim that pensioners are a priority, and we agree. However, little is being done to encourage those who are elderly and disabled to take up attendance allowance. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point, and, if he can, commit the Government to future plans to tackle it.
  Mr. Rooker: I shall not talk about attendance allowance because the order does not cover it. Attendance allowance is not a national insurance benefit. However,
  68
  the hon. Gentleman should reflect on the fact that it is not means-tested. The arguments about stigma therefore cannot apply to attendance allowance.
  Mr. George: I accept the Minister's intervention in the spirit in which it was intended. [Interruption.] I am stimulated to refer to attendance allowance because, as my hon. Friends are pointing out, the order refers to it. I stress that we are considering one of the most socially excluded groups in the country. I am sure that the Government agree that we should concentrate on that group and do all that we can to ensure that they are enabled to take up the benefits to which they are entitled. I hope that a Labour Government want to take action to remedy previous Governments' failures to deal with the matter.
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman homed in on attendance allowance and was right to say that take-up is low. However, unlike pensions and other contributory benefits, and minimum income guarantee, which is means-tested, another group of benefits are not means-tested. The reasons for the low take-up cannot, therefore, be stigma and other reasons that are associated with minimum income guarantee. The reasons for the take-up of various benefits are different. We are considering a serious matter, which must be addressed, but stigma cannot be responsible for the low take-up of attendance allowance.
  Mr. George: I agree with the Minister. There is no reason to hang back on promoting attendance allowance. Department of Social Security research report 94, which was published in July last year and entitled "Disability in Great Britain", referred to a survey on the number of outings that disabled older people made. They were asked how many outings they had made in the past four weeks. The report said:
  "over 40 per cent. of the most severely disabled people (severity 9–10) and a quarter of disabled people aged 70 and over had not been out shopping, to visit family or friends or on any kind of excursion in the four weeks prior to interview. A quarter of more seriously disabled people said they would make more outings were help available or facilities better."
  That is a matter of shared concern. I am not criticising the Government; it is helpful that they undertook the research.
  The Government are clearly concerned about the report's findings. We are considering not only the poorest of the poor but the most socially excluded. We are discussing literal exclusion from society. Government action, especially a take-up campaign, would therefore be welcome. It would support carers and combat social exclusion.
  6.38 pm
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I am disappointed that there are not more hon. Members present; it seems that, on a Monday evening, the House of Commons is as empty as the millennium dome.
  I want to consider two matters: the effect of social security on poverty, and the uprating of pensions. I represent an inner-urban area that is variously described as chic, wealthy and the home of new Labour; and as a centre of poverty and unemployment. It might be all of those things. An inner-urban area with high rates of unemployment inevitably has high levels of poverty.

  69
  In some schools in my constituency, 70 per cent. of the children receive free school meals. That is possible only if parents are on income support.
  Statistics show that my constituency has one of the highest long-term unemployment levels in the United Kingdom. That is due to a combination of the loss of manufacturing industry and small workshop industries; to increases in IT-related industries; and to the fact that many people do not have appropriate skills for such jobs. It is advantageous for an employer to sell anything resembling a workshop or manufacturing unit anywhere in inner London for private housing development, which they can do at phenomenal prices. That is a product of the property boom, to which I shall return shortly. There is a paradox: there is a property boom and huge profits are being made from speculation, but that does not benefit local people on housing waiting lists and it helps to create high unemployment.
  The effect of social transformation in my area of inner London is not that different from the effect in many other areas around the inner-London ring, such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Camden, Lewisham and Lambeth. The poorest people cannot get council housing or housing association property because there is hardly any investment in them. Last year, the princely total of 200 new affordable rented properties were created in the whole borough. The housing waiting list is about 10,000. The transfer list is about 12,000. An unknown number of single people cannot even register to get on the council house waiting list in the first place.
  Younger people either have to pay high private rents to get a place to live or move out of the area. In turn, that creates a sense of isolation and anger among the elderly who no longer have extended family networks around them or the joy of meeting or seeing grandchildren frequently. They live increasingly isolated lives and one detects a degree of bitterness about what is happening in their community. I realise that the social security system cannot address that issue, but the debate is about social security, so I want to discuss it. The other aspects of Government policy that impinge on poverty have to be considered within the system.
  I am not altogether critical of a lot of what the Government have done in areas of poverty. The introduction of the minimum wage has had a good effect in my constituency, even though it is not one of the lowest-paid in the country. The working families tax credit has likewise had an enormous impact—a lot of people have benefited from it hugely—as have the single regeneration budget and the support provided through the new deal, which has enabled people who have been on benefits in the long term to return to work.
  However, I am worried about those who are removed from benefit altogether because they fail the actively seeking work test or a restart interview. I am disturbed that a large number of people are on no benefit whatever and have poor lives. They end up homeless or on the streets as they refuse to undertake training courses that they believe are inappropriate for them. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will deal with that in his winding-up speech. That is the downside of the effort to reduce the number of people on benefit, and it must be addressed seriously. People disappear from the statistics altogether because they are no longer on benefit, seeking work or claiming anything. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), the Chairman of the Social
  70
  Security Committee, is present, and I hope that his Committee—and the social exclusion unit—will take that on board and consider it seriously.
  I welcome the money being spent on the single regeneration budget, which is specifically targeted on inner-urban areas of great poverty where long-term unemployment is a problem and a large proportion of the population are on income support. In parenthesis, I stress to my right hon. Friend the Minister that that has to be accompanied by significantly greater public sector investment in good-quality rented housing—otherwise, all the problems that I have described simply will not go away.
  The order that we are asked to approve mentions housing benefit tapers. A few Members have referred to them and to the whole system of housing benefit. I was a local councillor when housing benefit was introduced and its administration was rather unfairly put on local government which, by and large, is not particularly well equipped to administer what is in effect a social security benefit. Indeed, if the experience in my own community and neighbouring London boroughs is anything to go by, the administration is something akin to abominable or appalling—depending on whether I am in a good or very good mood when I describe it. Indeed, the administration of a company named IT Net, which operates in Islington and Hackney, is so poor that a large number of people have been threatened with eviction because their rent is allegedly in arrears, although they are not in arrears at all. The incompetent delivery of housing benefit puts them in arrears and they are therefore threatened with eviction. Many such people have been evicted by that company on behalf of private sector landlords.
  I look to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to consider a number of issues such as the cost to local authorities of administering housing benefit. Local authorities pay a direct penalty, as administration represents a cost unless they are fantastically efficient. If they are lucky, they may achieve a nil deficit. There is a positive disincentive to administering housing benefit in the way that it ought to be administered.
  I also want to refer to the sum that society spends on housing benefit, which is absolutely phenomenal. Very high rents apply in inner-London areas and possibly in the inner-urban areas of other cities. The normal council rent for a two-bedroom property might be about £70 or £80 a week, but a house sold under the right-to-buy scheme and let out privately could be rented out for £150, £200 or £300 a week. Often, that is paid by housing benefit. House A, which receives housing benefit, might cost £80 a week, but house B could cost us, the community, two or three times as much because the right to buy was exercised some years ago. Private rented one-bedroom flats cost £150 week, and houses £400 a week. Through the rent deregulation introduced by the Tories, the housing benefit system is creating property millionaires through public sector expenditure.
  I look to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to do something about that. He must be prepared seriously to consider the reintroduction of rent controls and the need for investment in good-quality public sector housing. We are pouring money into the pockets of landlords when we ought to be putting it into bricks and mortar to house people in desperate need. Those issues are extremely important.

  71
  I have spent many years working with the Islington Pensioners Forum and am pleased to have been able to do so. I work also with the Greater London Pensioners Association and the Greater London Forum for the Elderly, which meets quarterly in the House. When one considers history, one sees the great determination of 110 or 120 years ago which eventually led to the introduction of the state old-age pension in the Lloyd George Budget. [Interruption.] Before the Liberals get completely carried away, I have in my possession a book entitled "No Thanks to Lloyd George: the Introduction of the State Old-Age Pension", which was presented to me by the Highbury Pensioners Forum. Apparently, the old charlatan had to be driven to it at the last moment; he had not the slightest intention of doing it. I shall leave that for a Liberal Democrat history workshop. I should be happy to come along and discuss the whole question with them. We could have a fascinating debate.
  The old-age pension was introduced about 100 years ago—essentially as a result of pressure from radical groups such as Churches, trade unions and elements of the Liberal party—and began fairly modestly. As a proportion of average earnings, it fell at various times and at one point was worth very little indeed. The great reforms in the pension system occurred in 1975 when Barbara Castle and Brian O'Malley introduced a Bill that linked the state pension with earnings and recognised that a large number of people in work were not eligible to enter an occupational pension scheme because they were part-time, on short-term contracts, or working for a company that did not have such a scheme. SERPS was developed to take over from previous schemes that were meant to mop up those who were not covered.
  The incoming Tory Government inherited a good situation. By 1980, the state pension was rising in line with earnings and the number of people with access to either a low or a nil-contribution occupational pension was very high indeed. Former Chancellor Geoffrey Howe described the abolition of the link between the state pension and earnings in 1980 as his greatest achievement. A great achievement it certainly was: as a result of that single act, the state pension as a proportion of earnings has been reduced from about 24 per cent. in 1980–81 to about 14 per cent. at present—if my memory serves me correctly.
  A Bill that the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)—the former Prime Minister—helped to guide through the House as a junior Social Security Minister in 1986 falsely claimed that SERPS was unsustainable, and therefore must be revalued. The purpose of that Bill—which became the Social Security Act 1986—was to create a market for the private pensions industry.
  After 18 years of Tory Government, we have a state pension linked to prices rather than earnings, which has fallen dramatically in value. We have also seen a massive mis-selling of private pensions as a result of the 1986 legislation. I think there is a good deal of common ground between the Liberal Democrats and Labour: both parties believe that the situation is appalling, and that the poverty of many pensioners must be addressed.
  Pensioners whom I meet are extremely angry about their lot. They are angry about their poverty; they are angry about being told that they will receive an increase
  72
  of 70-odd pence this year; and they are angry—I think they are right to be so—about something else. They have contributed to national insurance-related benefits all their lives, and their generation created the welfare state consensus of the post-war period. They now feel that they are being sold something that they do not want: something that should be very different.
  My problem with the Government's pensions strategy does not lie in the adoption of the winter fuel allowance, or with the abolition of payment for eye tests. I welcome those moves. My problem lies in the Government's failure to recognise the high cost of living experienced by many elderly people. The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) mentioned a pensioner index. I think that such an index should be adopted officially, because people who buy in small quantities tend to spend more in doing so. Moreover, hidden expenses are involved in the increased cost of many activities in which pensioners want to engage.
  In London, following the abolition of the Inner London education authority, adult education has been the victim of a holocaust, and that has been replicated in many other parts of the country. It now costs a great deal to undertake an adult education course. Most people must pay to go to day centres, or to engage a home carer. All those costs have been introduced by stealth over the past decade or so. It is time to recognise that, for many pensioners, life is prohibitively expensive. The day centres that were created for the benefit of specific people are often half empty, or indeed closed, because those people cannot afford to pay what are actually quite small charges.
  Mr. David Heath: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has said, especially about the need for a pensioner index. It will be interesting to see whether the Minister responds to that point; he did not do so the other day, when we debated the same issue.
  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one reason for grievance is the fact that people do not differentiate between different parts of government? People who see national Government granting a 75p increase, and know that it will immediately be taken away by local government through either council tax or additional charges for services such as those described by the hon. Gentleman, perceive that as a con trick.
  Mr. Corbyn: Absolutely. After last year's pension increase, I attended my local pensioners forum. Having discussed the increase, the pensioners decided that the amount had already gone. Indeed, they calculated that they had been given a "negative rise", because of various other charges and council tax rises.
  Pensioners in every part of the country probably rely on local authority services more heavily than the rest of the population, through the very fact of their greater age and needs. Local authorities wishing to reduce the council tax rise that they must impose on the electorate as a whole are often quick to introduce high charges for marginal groups, in order to ameliorate their demand on society generally. In fact, increasing taxation overall is much fairer and cheaper than introducing charges that apply to specific groups.
  Let me make a final point about the Government's pensions strategy. I believe in a large state old age pension. I wish that the Government had chosen to revalue

  73
  and maintain SERPS, keeping in mind the vision of the 1970s, rather than adopting the idea of stakeholder pensions and the minimum income guarantee. I suspect that there is a problem. The Government believe in universal benefits: they believe in child benefit, the winter fuel allowance and the state pension, none of which are means-tested. In our debates on pensions, the Secretary of State has produced figures showing that many pensioners do not claim income support for various reasons, including poor advice and the stigma that they feel is involved. I suspect that, if we engage in a similar debate in 10 years' time, we shall hear a similar argument—on a larger scale—about the number of pensioners who do not take up the minimum income guarantee because they do not want to negotiate the hurdles involved in applying for it, or are unable to do so.
  We are dealing with a generation of people who are now retiring. Many of those people, particularly the men, are on occupational pension schemes, and are, if not well off, then better off than people who retired some years ago. The age profile of the pensioner community shows that the older they get, the poorer they get. The women are poor in the first place, and the oldest female pensioners are often the poorest.
  As for those who are now in their 30s, 40s and 50s, they change jobs frequently. Many are in no private scheme, no occupational scheme, no other scheme of any sort. Such people will rely on a state pension, plus any top-ups that they can get. In 20 years' time, a significant number of pensioners will rely heavily on means-tested benefits that are expensive to administer, inefficient in their direction and inefficient generally.
  We should instead consider a substantial increase in the basic state pension, and, in principle, a link with average earnings. If it is good enough to link the principle of the minimum income guarantee to average earnings, it ought to be good enough to do the same with the basic state pension. If we at least adopted that principle, pensioners would see that the state pension was beginning to increase in line with the wealth of the rest of the community. That is the vision that Barbara Castle and others had in the mid-1970s, and I think we should have the courage to have it now.
  A couple of Members have mentioned overseas pensions. When I was a member of the Social Security Committee in the last Parliament, we examined the whole question of British people living abroad who were eligible for a British pension. It depends where people live: it is a lottery. People move abroad, on or before retirement, for a number of reasons to do with home, family or other factors. There is nothing wrong with that. They have paid for, have worked for, and are eligible for, pensions in this country, and I see no reason for the pensions that they receive not to be linked to what is paid here.
  We expect Australia, which has a comprehensive welfare state, to support British pensioners. British pensioners living in South Africa, where there is no such comprehensive welfare state, do very badly. Canada, which has a comprehensive welfare state, gives pensioners strong support, but pensioners living in another country will not receive that support. I think that that is morally wrong, and that we should arrange for the current
  74
  state pension here to apply to British pensioners wherever they happen to be, provided that they are eligible to receive it.
  Mr. Mackinlay: I see the Secretary of State lurking behind the Speaker's Chair, but I hope that the Minister will respond to a question that I asked the Secretary of State earlier, which he did not answer.
  When I asked the Secretary of State my question, he said that we must use our resources carefully, and that they must be used in other ways. He did not, however, tell me why there should be a disparity between expatriates in some countries and expatriates in others. It is a logic that I do not understand.
  Mr. Corbyn: I do not think it fair to say that the Secretary of State is lurking behind the Speaker's Chair. He seems to be standing beside it with great confidence, and no doubt he will shortly come in and announce that he agrees with everything my hon. Friend and I are saying about the uprating of the overseas pension.
  The position is entirely illogical. Those who live in one country will receive the pension, while those living in another country will not. As I have said, people live in countries for a variety of family and related reasons, and I think that we should deal with the moral issue involved.
  The House has a chance to do far more for pensioners. As a start, we should agree to link the state pension with earnings again. That would give an awful lot of confidence to an awful lot of pensioners who feel hard done by. They are very angry about the minuscule increase being offered to them from April, and look to politicians of all parties to ensure that in future years they receive a decent increase.
  7 pm
  Mrs. Jacqui Lait: This debate, like most of our debates, has been not only wide-ranging, but very interesting—I am just grateful that I am not the one who will have to add up the sums requested today by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. Those sums would make the sum provided for pensions—which is one third of the social security budget—look very meagre.
  I do not follow the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn)—who certainly committed himself to large sums—but would point out to him that, given the current population structure, his thinking on pensions would be unlikely to produce for him either a state or funded pension on which he could live happily for the rest of his life.
  We have been debating some complex but actually rather simple motions to approve the social security uprating orders. Conservative Members will not vote against the motions, and—although I am tempted to deal with some of the many suggestions made in the debate—I shall be brief in my comments. Moreover, I suspect that the Minister and I are still trying to get our heads round clauses 28 and 29 of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill, which we shall start debating tomorrow in Committee. Some of the matters mentioned in the debate—such as the state second pension—are dealt with also in the Bill.
  Although I have not yet tabled them, there will also be amendments to the Bill on annuities and the 75-year rule. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) that there needs to be substantial change to the rule.

  75
  I was sad to see that, on Friday, the Department of Social Security felt it necessary to slip out a consultation paper on indexation of annuities. The paper has not yet reached either the Vote Office or the Library, although it is available on the internet—which is perhaps where, in future, we shall receive our information, rather than receiving it in the usual manner in the House. Nevertheless, I give the Minister notice that the annuity issue will undoubtedly arise in our consideration of the Bill in Committee.
  As many hon. Members have said, pensioners believe that the 75p increase is measly. The Government have regularly made the point that pensioners have access to the minimum income guarantee. Nevertheless, the guarantee is merely a part of the income support system, but with a splendid new name. As hon. Members have said, support provided as part of the guarantee is means-tested. The guarantee is also not being taken up with great enthusiasm. I think that it is really a bit of a cruel trick to play on pensioners.
  I look forward to hearing the Government's proposals on how they will try to increase take-up. Although many attempts have been made on many occasions to improve take-up, no one has yet succeeded. Perhaps Ministers, in the Government's new world of spin doctors, will find the key and ensure increased take-up of the minimum income guarantee.
  I look forward also to hearing the Government's statement on widows' inheritance and the state earnings-related pension scheme. Earlier today, I was slightly surprised by the Minister's reply to my question on when a decision on those matters is likely to be made, and on whether we shall have to wait for a decision until 2002—when one will be made also on pensions—or might expect one a bit sooner.
  I shall not take up more of the House's time on the motions. As I said, on the pensions Bill, it is cold-towel time for the Minister and me. I reiterate, however, that Conservative Members will not vote against the motions.
  7.4 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker): I believe that—other than at today's Question Time—this has been the first time that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has replied to a debate since being given her new portfolio.
  Mrs. Lait: It was the first time in the House.
  Mr. Rooker: Yes. It has reminded me of when my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Orme first allowed me a run at the Dispatch Box. It was in a social security debate, but at a low-key moment, after 10 o'clock at night, so that it would not matter if things went wrong.
  We have had a very interesting debate. Although there is no way in which I shall be able to reply to all the points made by hon. Members, I shall try to reply to some of them.
  Some thoughtful speeches—some short and thoughtful, others long and thoughtful—have been made, and the Government have been asked many questions, not to
  76
  mention the four issues that were raised by Liberal Democrat Members, who will be voting against the uprating.
  I tell Liberal Democrat Members now that, when the general election comes, it will be no good complaining that every Labour candidate is highlighting how the Liberal Democrats voted at the end of this debate. Liberal Democrat Members will be voting against an increase in child benefit, in disability benefit and in pensions, and no amount of pontificating outside the Chamber—[Interruption.] No. In the heat of a general election, when Liberal Democrat Members try to explain to local journalists the rules and procedures of the House, it will not wash. The message will get across that they simply voted against the increases.
  I shall deal with the speeches in reverse order. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), who—I know; he told me them—had extremely good reasons for not attending the early part of the debate, made a point on overseas pensioners and expatriates. The point was dealt with earlier today. I believe that £300 million was mentioned as the sum necessary to address the issue as some hon. Members would like it addressed. Frankly, we have other and better ways of spending £300 million. Before people leave the country, they fully know the rules on how pensions are uprated around the world. There is no secret about the countries with which we have international treaties. International treaties are the main factor, and there really should not be any argument about that.
  I made my second intervention on the speech of the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. George) because I felt that I owed him an apology for the way in which I made my first intervention, on his point on attendance allowance. I misunderstood the point that he was making. He was rightly raising the serious issue of attendance allowance take-up. All the evidence shows that take-up of the allowance by pensioners is not as great as research indicates that it should be. However, it is difficult to target attendance allowance, and we certainly could not run the same type of targeting campaign as we shall soon be running on the minimum income guarantee. For a start, attendance allowance is not means-tested. The reasons for low take-up in the two benefits are not the same.
  Ignorance is one element in low take-up of attendance allowance. Some pensioners may think, "I'm a pensioner; I can't get attendance allowance," but that is not correct. I have come across cases in which people in the medical profession think that pensioner patients are not eligible. It is simply not true.
  There is scope for working on take-up of attendance allowance—which is one way of getting money to the pensioner population. The allowance is not means-tested; based on circumstances, it is theirs as of right. I agree entirely that there is work to do on the issue.
  The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is Chairman of the Social Security Committee, made a long and thoughtful speech—which is not a criticism. I shall not drop myself in problems, but at the end of his speech, he concentrated on earnings limits and gave two examples, one of which was the long-standing £50 earning limit for those receiving invalid care allowance.
  On Friday, I raised that very issue both with constituents, and—strangely enough, in the context of the national minimum wage—on a live radio phone-in, in

  77
  the midlands. A husband rang up about his wife, who was the carer, but was also doing a little job on the side that she wanted to continue doing. The caller said that many of the people with whom his wife worked benefited from the minimum wage. Although that is a real plus, ultimately, to continue receiving the allowance, the wife would have to cut her hours.
  With a £50 threshold, the danger is that one might have to cut hours to such an extent that an employer will say, "If you can work only 13 hours, don't bother coming in—it's not worth it." Earning limits for carers are a real issue.
  The Government wish to encourage carers, and we have long wished to enable people to remain in their own homes for longer than they have hitherto been able to. Accomplishing both those goals is part of the difficulty of giving an early response to the royal commission. Nevertheless, we shall give that response by this summer. Although there is nothing new in those comments on earnings limits, the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire raised the issue, and it is an absolutely valid one.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) made a robust and honest speech. I should like to think that he might have done what I have done when faced with 200 or 300 quite angry and vociferous pensioners. I have said, "Hands up anyone here living on £66.75." To date, no one has put their hands up. I am talking about big groups, one of which had been addressed by my noble Friend Baroness Castle, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), Jack Jones and Rodney Bickerstaffe; there were seven or eight of them. I was the last to do so.
  I made it a central point that we were targeting our resources on the poorest pensioners in the land. There is an issue about who is being missed out—hence the research. We cannot be certain about the figures. There is a broad spread of figures; they come from the general household survey. We do not know where those people are. It is not as precise as the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) says. We have an idea, and that will be part of our take-up campaign.
  These people may, in the main, live in other people's households. The chances are that they will not be single and living alone in their own household; otherwise we would have, if you like, caught them by now, or they would have needed the extra help. That, too, will be part of our take-up campaign.
  Following the Benefits Agency work, we estimate that the figure is a little over 2 million. Those people will be targeted in three tranches anyway. There will be television and press advertising. We will make an early announcement about the way in which we intend to go forward; we certainly will make the announcement before the end of this month. There will then be a large Government-sponsored take-up campaign, with a telephone national line and television advertising.
  The work has been done, in the sense that we have seen the scripts and literature, with "minimum guarantee" on leaflets and drafts. At present, there are no posters or leaflets with minimum income guarantee on them. There are no documents, but there will be: we have seen the proofs. To that extent, we are on the verge of being able to launch that campaign. It is important that we get the money to the people who deserve it.
  78
  Several hon. Members raised the issue of winter fuel payments. Some said thanks, but not many. They said, "It is nice to have it, but it should have been on the pension." That was not the option. Everyone knows that. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made it clear that we have to pay it every year from now on. That is a big advance. Payment went up fivefold. Because of European Court judgments, it will be paid to men and women aged 60. That will change progressively as the retirement age goes up to 65—we make no secret of that.
  The hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh) was carping again, basically. I was aware of the press cuttings that she was reading from. It is true that, in trying to put it across that winter fuel payments were not tied to being a pensioner—they are not following that court judgment; they are tied to the age of 60-plus—I made that bold statement about every person in the country. Okay, I did not say that people in prison and people who were not 60 before the relevant date in September were excluded. All right hon. and hon. Members should know that. If we had not done it in that way, they would make another point.
  Miss McIntosh: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Rooker: I will not. We had the cut-off point of the date in September because we guaranteed to get the winter fuel cash in hand before Christmas. I regret to say that, with the old technology that we have inherited, it takes us a long time to do it; we have to have a long run-in to do the work. This year's date will probably be a similar one.
  In the meantime, we have to do the work to find the people who, for the past two years, have missed out following the court judgment.
  Miss McIntosh: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Rooker: I will in a moment. I want to finish the point about the winter fuel payment.
  We have to find those males aged 60-plus who did not have a spouse who was receiving the winter fuel payment; it is per household, not per person. We estimate that there are 1.5 million such males. Many will not be receiving any benefit. They will be at work. We do not have direct day-to-day contact with them, other than the fact that they pay national insurance contributions. We do not have a database from which to drum the information up, so it will take time to put together. Some of the 1.5 million-plus will have a spouse who received the £100. Obviously, the date of birth is relevant; it could have been before or after 20 September.
  The European Court judgment might have made it look a simple matter of paying everyone from 60, rather than at our state retirement ages, but life is not as simple as that. We will do our best to get the backdated payments of about £100—it could be £20, or £140 to £170—to those people as soon as possible. However, it is as important to get our database correct—so that they receive their winter fuel payments before Christmas this year—as it is to pay the arrears.
  Miss McIntosh: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that I am not known for carping in this place. I am trying to be helpful. What advice would

  79
  he give my constituents who have not been paid winter fuel payments for 1998, let alone 1999? Should they wait, or apply now?
  Mr. Rooker: If those people have not received the payment for last year and the year before, obviously something is seriously wrong, and we should be provided with the details. There has been a telephone helpline. There have been facilities for people to be able to do that. If the hon. Lady provides information, we will ensure that the matter is dealt with immediately. I have made the point about winter fuel payments because it was said that we were being lethargic in the way in which we were dealing with the matter.
  On capital limits, I repeat what the Secretary of State said. They will be reviewed in the current Parliament. We will make an announcement as quickly as possible. They will be reviewed more quickly than the period for which they have been frozen. The last time that there was an increase was 1990—from £6,000 to £8,000.
  On inherited SERPS, the definition of "shortly" and "as soon as possible" is not as long as a piece of string, because we are obliged to do the work. Obviously, there have been inquiries by the parliamentary commissioner as well. The decision is not far off as to which way we shall proceed, but I repeat, although I should not have to do so any more: no change will take place this April. The reduction to 50 per cent. will not occur this April, so there will be no change. We have already said that in the legislation that was passed last year.
  I do not think that it can be said that no decision is imminent on the major issues of winter fuel payment take-up, SERPS and the capital limits; decisions are imminent. We will announce them to the House as quickly as we can—that is what we will seek to do.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Hall) made an extremely articulate speech, as others have, regarding the position of pensioners who feel hard done by because of the 75p increase. As I said at Social Security Question Time, the only people who will get the 75p will be those who receive only £66.75. Hon. Members might shake their heads. The fact is that net average pensioner income for a single person in 1997–98 was £132. We cannot ignore SERPS. As Opposition Members have rightly said, the build-ups of occupational pensions in the 1960s and 1970s, and of SERPS, which is part and parcel of the same thing, during the 1980s, have dramatically changed total pensioner incomes. It would be stupid to ignore the position. The increase follows on into those pensions, on top of the 75p addition to the £66.75. Of course that is the average figure, and averages can be misleading. However, we make no apology for targeting those who have not achieved anywhere near those averages, such as those who are on the means test of the minimum income guarantee. We must make sure that we do our best for them.
  Reference was made to the pensioner price index, as if there were not such an index. The Office for National Statistics still operates a pensioner price index, which reflects a basket of goods used by most pensioners. However, comparing the pensioner price index with the retail prices index over the past 20 years produces a significant reduction in the basic state pension of over £10 a week, so I do not think that we will be offering to use that index for the foreseeable future.
  80
  The pensioner price index excludes housing costs, including council tax. Pensioners on the minimum income guarantee, and just above it, can claim all or part of their housing costs or council tax. It is not as if they are deprived of help with their housing costs. Some will get all of their housing costs met, while others can get much of their costs met. I make no apology for the increases in the orders, which I commend to the House.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 284, Noes 31.

  Division No. 64]

  [7.21 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Connarty, Michael

  Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Alexander, Douglas

  Corbett, Robin

  Allen, Graham

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)

  Cousins, Jim

  Armstrong, Rt Hon Ms Hilary

  Crausby, David

  Ashton, Joe

  Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Banks, Tony

  Cummings, John

  Barnes, Harry

  Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)

  Barron, Kevin

  Dalyell, Tam

  Battle, John

  Darling, Rt Hon Alistair

  Bayley, Hugh

  Darvill, Keith

  Beard, Nigel

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Beckett, Rt Hon Mrs Margaret

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Benn, Hilary (Leeds C)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)

  Davis, Rt Hon Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Benton, Joe

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Berry, Roger

  Denham, John

  Best, Harold

  Dismore, Andrew

  Betts, Clive

  Dobbin, Jim

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Doran, Frank

  Blizzard, Bob

  Dowd, Jim

  Blunkett, Rt Hon David

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Boateng, Rt Hon Paul

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Bradley, Keith (Withington)

  Edwards, Huw

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Efford, Clive

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Ennis, Jeff

  Brinton, Mrs Helen

  Etherington, Bill

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Field, Rt Hon Frank

  Browne, Desmond

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Fitzsimons, Lorna

  Burden, Richard

  Flint, Caroline

  Burgon, Colin

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)

  Butler, Mrs Christine

  Foster, Michael J (Worcester)

  Caborn, Rt Hon Richard

  Fyfe, Maria

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Gibson, Dr Ian

  Cann, Jamie

  Gilroy, Mrs Linda

  Caplin, Ivor

  Godman, Dr Norman A

  Casale, Roger

  Godsiff, Roger

  Caton, Martin

  Goggins, Paul

  Cawsey, Ian

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Clapham, Michael

  Gordon, Mrs Eileen

  Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)

  Grant, Bernie

  Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Clarke, Charles (Norwich S)

  Grogan, John

  Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)

  Hain, Peter

  Clarke, Rt Hon Tom (Coatbridge)

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Clelland, David

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Clwyd, Ann

  Healey, John

  Coaker, Vernon

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Heppell, John

  Coleman, Iain

  Hesford, Stephen

  Colman, Tony

  Hill, Keith

  81

  Hinchliffe, David

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Hoey, Kate

  Maxton, John

  Hope, Phil

  Meacher, Rt Hon Michael

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Meale, Alan

  Howells, Dr Kim

  Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Milburn, Rt Hon Alan

  Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)

  Miller, Andrew

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Moran, Ms Margaret

  Hurst, Alan

  Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)

  Hutton, John

  Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)

  Iddon, Dr Brian

  Morley, Elliot

  Illsley, Eric

  Morris, Rt Hon Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)

  Ingram, Rt Hon Adam

  Jenkins, Brian

  Mountford, Kali

  Jones, Rt Hon Barry (Alyn)

  Mudie, George

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Mullin, Chris

  Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Naysmith, Dr Doug

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Norris, Dan

  Jowell, Rt Hon Ms Tessa

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  O'Neill, Martin

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Organ, Mrs Diana

  Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)

  Pearson, Ian

  Kemp, Fraser

  Pendry, Tom

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Perham, Ms Linda

  Khabra, Piara S

  Pickthall, Colin

  Kidney, David

  Pike, Peter L

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)

  Plaskitt, James

  Kumar, Dr Ashok

  Pollard, Kerry

  Laxton, Bob

  Pond, Chris

  Leslie, Christopher

  Pope, Greg

  Levitt, Tom

  Powell, Sir Raymond

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Linton, Martin

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Prescott, Rt Hon John

  Lock, David

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Love, Andrew

  Prosser, Gwyn

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Purchase, Ken

  McCabe, Steve

  Quin, Rt Hon Ms Joyce

  McCafferty, Ms Chris

  Quinn, Lawrie

  McCartney, Rt Hon Ian (Makerfield)

  Rammell, Bill

  Rapson, Syd

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Raynsford, Nick

  McDonnell, John

  Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)

  McFall, John

  Reid, Rt Hon Dr John (Hamilton N)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  McIsaac, Shona

  Rogers, Allan

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Rooker, Rt Hon Jeff

  McNulty, Tony

  Rooney, Terry

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Rowlands, Ted

  McWalter, Tony

  Roy, Frank

  McWilliam, John

  Ruane, Chris

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Ruddock, Joan

  Mallaber, Judy

  Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)

  Ryan, Ms Joan

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Sawford, Phil

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Sheerman, Barry

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  82

  Short, Rt Hon Clare

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)

  Singh, Marsha

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Tynan, Bill

  Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Snape, Peter

  Ward, Ms Claire

  Soley, Clive

  Wareing, Robert N

  Southworth, Ms Helen

  Watts, David

  Spellar John

  White, Brian

  Squire, Ms Rachel

  Whitehead, Dr Alan

  Starkey, Dr Phyllis

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Stoate, Dr Howard

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)

  Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin

  Williams Mrs Betty (Conwy)

  Stringer, Graham

  Winnick, David

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Wise Audrey

  Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Wood Mike

  Woolas, Phil

  Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)

  Worthington, Tony

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Thomas, Gareth R (Harrow W)

  Timms, Stephen

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Tipping, Paddy

  Mr. David Jamieson and

  Trickett, Jon

  Mr. Mike Hall.

  NOES

  Allan, Richard

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Maclennan, Rt Hon Robert

  Beith, Rt Hon A J

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)

  Brake, Tom

  Moore, Michael

  Brand, Dr Peter

  Oaten, Mark

  Breed, Colin

  Öpik, Lembit

  Burstow, Paul

  Rendel, David

  Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Stunell, Andrew

  Chidgey, David

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Cotter, Brian

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Tyler, Paul

  Feam, Ronnie

  Webb, Steve

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Willis, Phil

  George, Andrew (St Ives)

  Harris, Dr Evan

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Mr. Bob Russell and

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Mr. David Heath.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.

  SOCIAL SECURITY (PENSIONS)
  Resolved,
  That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.—[Mr. Rooker.]

  Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill (Procedure)
  7.34 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): I beg to move,
  That, if the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill be read a second time, no Order shall be made for the committal of the Bill and it shall be ordered to be read a third time upon a future day; and upon a Motion being made for Third Reading the Question thereon shall be put forthwith and may be decided, though opposed, after the expiration of the time for opposed business.
  I shall be happy to answer any questions that arise.
  Mr. David Lidington: As I understand the motion, it is to provide a special and accelerated procedure for our proceedings on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill later this week, and the intention is to comply with the provision of the Parliament Acts that the Bill, when it leaves the Commons, must be identical in virtually every respect to the Bill previously enacted here.
  The precedents for the motion are somewhat scarce. Unusually, my researches unearthed precedents set by Liberal Governments, which suggests that we are trespassing on what might mark the political boundary between history and archaeology.
  Miss Anne McIntosh: Has my hon. Friend found any precedent for such a motion on a matter of conscience that goes to the heart of people's behaviour?
  Mr. Lidington: That is a good point. It is true that such a motion has been used previously to enact measures of intense party controversy and that it was employed on the War Crimes Bill in 1991—a measure that, although the subject of fierce controversy, was given a free vote in both Houses of Parliament—but I do not believe that there is a precedent for a Bill to be dealt with under the Parliament Acts that deals with a matter of personal moral and religious beliefs.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to explain in a little more detail than he has yet been willing to do what the Government's motives are for using the Parliament Acts and not at least trying out the opinion of the newly reformed other place, and why they are employing this precise motion to give effect to those Parliament Act procedures.
  I was surprised that the Government, having told the House that the removal of the hereditary peers was essential to get rid of what they regarded as a tremendous injustice, should now apparently have so little confidence in their reformed Chamber that they are unwilling to put the Bill to the test of a vote in it.
  I question the need for the motion. The precedents are limited. In 1913 and 1914, Parliament Act motions of this kind were introduced for the Government of Ireland Bill, the Established Church (Wales) Bill and the Plural Voting Bill. It is perhaps worth noting that the incumbent Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, moved those motions; those were days when Prime Ministers were rather more keen on appearances at the Dispatch Box.
  84
  The motion provides that, after Second Reading, there will be no Committee stage and that, although there may be a motion for Third Reading—and my understanding is that it could be voted on—there will be no debate on that motion.
  Miss McIntosh: I have just been to the Public Bill Office to try to table an amendment to the Bill, and I was told that, if the motion is approved this evening, no hon. Member will be permitted to table one. That is deeply regrettable. The House will not be allowed the opportunity to consider an amendment to equalise the age of consent at 18, which would be entirely in keeping with European law.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Lady should not attempt to make a speech in an intervention.
  Mr. Lidington: Questions arise over the removal of the Committee stage and the possibility of debate on Third Reading. The Government's argument is that, in order to comply with the procedures laid down in the Parliament Acts, we cannot have a Committee stage. However, I find it strange that a Government with a majority of about 180 should be so nervous of the normal Committee procedure.
  The Government have plenty of weapons available. They have a comfortable majority and, although such Bills have always been decided—and will be decided this Thursday—on a free vote, there is a big majority in the House as now constituted for the principle behind the Bill. The Government also have available the normal procedures to manage business, including closure motions and guillotines.
  Mr. Gordon Marsden: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman's constitutional arguments. If we were to have a Committee stage during which—heaven forfend—Conservative Members attempted to filibuster and the Government had to move a closure motion, may I take it from what he has just said that the Conservatives would not then jump up and down and scream and shout about the curtailment of democracy?
  Mr. Lidington: On all proceedings in previous Sessions on the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill, the Conservative party has operated a free vote, without the application of party Whips. That applies to the motion tonight and would apply to any vote held on the substance of the Bill or any other procedural motions relating to it. In free votes, as the hon. Gentleman knows, my Front-Bench colleagues take different views, depending on their personal opinions. That is how it should be with a Bill of this nature and that is how we will continue to operate.
  The Government's argument, as I have said, is that to comply with the Parliament Acts, it is necessary to have no Committee stage. Those arguments were made by the Liberal Government in 1913 and 1914, by the Labour Government in 1948 and by the Conservative Government in 1991. However, there is an alternative available to the Government that has not previously—as far as I am aware—been mentioned and that is explicitly provided for in section 2(4) of the Parliament Act 1911. That Act,

  85
  while it states clearly that the Bill sent from the House of Commons must be the same as that which was passed in the previous Session, also states that
  "the House of Commons may, if they think fit, on the passage of such a Bill through the House … suggest any further amendments without inserting the amendments in the Bill, and any such suggested amendments shall be considered by the House of Lords, and if agreed to by that House, shall be treated as amendments made by the House of Lords, and agreed to by the House of Commons; but the exercise of this power by the House of Commons shall not affect the operation of this section in the event of the Bill being rejected by the House of Lords."
  The provision was designed to retain for the House of Commons the right to consider possible amendments to a Bill being brought forward under the Parliament Acts, without that compromising its ultimate rights to overrule the House of Lords and insist that the will of the Commons should prevail. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will tell us whether the Government will provide for what is sometimes termed the suggestions procedure to operate in respect of the Bill.
  The precedents show that no less a figure than Winston Churchill, at the time a Cabinet Minister in a Liberal Government, said:
  "The Suggestion stage is … to enable either small points which are oversights to be set right by general agreement or to enable suggestions of compromise to be put forward and debated. The root principle of the Parliament Act is that every Amendment which makes for agreement, and for a change in a Bill which tends to lessen disagreement, can be incorporated in the Bill without depriving it of the advantages of the … Parliament Act."—[Official Report, 23 June 1913; Vol. LIV, c. 843.]
  We should ponder carefully before we agree to a procedural motion that would considerably curtail the rights of every Back Bencher to debate the Bill and to suggest ways in which it could be improved. Of course, once Second Reading had taken place, any amendments would have to comply with the overall purpose of the Bill.
  Mr. Keith Darvill: Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that the House has not already had sufficient time for debate on the Bill in the previous Session?
  Mr. Lidington: One thing that I have learned in my relatively brief time here is that almost every piece of legislation introduced by any Government benefits from debate and amendment. Too often, I have seen Governments introduce legislation, curtail debate by procedural devices and then, a couple of years later, discover that it is far from perfect. The courts have to try to sort it out or it has to be amended through further legislation.
  The motions that were debated in 1913 and 1949 said that suggestions should be made in the form of a motion on the Order Paper tabled between Second Reading and Third Reading. If we are not to have a Committee stage, it would still be possible for the House to follow the procedures laid down in the Parliament Acts, provided that there was a gap between Second and Third Readings. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain whether the Government intend to proceed to Third Reading on Thursday immediately after Second Reading or whether they will set a further day for the formal motion of Third Reading. If the suggested procedure is to be followed, who is to decide whether a particular motion is selected for the debate? Will it be the Government, will it be Madam Speaker, or will there be a discussion through the usual channels?
  86
  I am also concerned that the Government have decided against allowing any time for Third Reading. This was, as I have acknowledged, part of the 1991 resolution of the House, but the previous precedents for measures of this type in 1913, 1914 and 1949, while curtailing the possibility of amendments being moved in Committee, allowed the House time for a full debate and a Division on Third Reading as well as on Second Reading. So there is a difference between the way in which the Government are choosing to proceed this week and the way in which previous Governments have approached the powers given to them under the Parliament Acts.
  My conclusion is that the only explanation for the Government's conduct is that they are fearful and embarrassed about the prospect of their Bill being debated in detail and at proper length in the Chamber. It is a great pity that they should choose not to rely on the good sense of individual Members to debate this measure with the maturity and judgment that I think has characterised debate on the Bill. It is a pity that they should propose a procedural motion that severely restricts the right of the House of Commons to debate an important measure on which many of our constituents have strong opinions. The Government owe the House a more detailed and compelling explanation than Ministers have provided so far.
  7.52 pm
  Mr. Paul Tyler: I share with the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) the hope that there will be a fuller explanation from the Minister in a few minutes. I do not wish to delay him, so I shall be extremely brief.
  It was unfortunate that, instead of putting options to the Opposition parties, the Government decided to proceed with one option because, as has been said, there are several. One would have been a guillotine motion, and Liberal Democrats would have resisted that firmly as being inappropriate. I hope, too, that the Conservatives would have recognised that as inappropriate to this measure, which is an issue of conscience on which we all believe that a free vote is appropriate. It would have been helpful if we had been given the opportunity to consider the Parliament Act procedure under which suggested amendments can be brought forward without pre-judging whether the Act could be used. It is unfortunate that we do not have such an opportunity
  Issues still need to be discussed properly in both Houses, and I hope that there will be opportunities to do so. I hope that the debate on Second Reading will be as wide ranging as it should be. I hope in particular that Ministers will consider some of the issues that still cause concern, such as the abuse of a position of trust. There are anomalies that need to be cleared up. Even if they cannot be cleared up in the Bill, some assurance by the Minister introducing the Second Reading debate is desirable.
  We have reached a point where perception is as important as substance. The perception is that if this House, or the other place, puts major obstacles in the passage of the Bill, there will be a widespread view that Parliament is yet again dragging its heels over an issue on which there is a settled view. My colleagues and I have considered the precedents carefully, as has the hon. Member for Aylesbury. We accept that there is a good case for proceeding with this motion and we will therefore support it.
  7.54 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng): The motion tonight is a purely procedural one. The substance of the matter and the Bill to be considered on Second Reading on Thursday has been debated at length—exhaustively—with some good speeches from both sides and some that were, quite frankly, best forgotten. All in all, we have had an opportunity, time and again, to consider the substance of the debate and a settled view has been arrived at by the House, as hon. Members have said in this debate.
  Let me outline briefly why we have alighted on this procedure. It is important, in so doing, to look briefly at the Bill's unhappy history, particularly at the sorry account of the treatment of these proposals in another place. In accordance with the Government's agreement, reached on the cases before the European Court of Human Rights of Sutherland and Morris, the House was given an opportunity to consider the equalisation of the age of consent as an amendment to the Crime and Disorder Bill as long ago as 22 June 1998. Concern was voiced in that debate about the need to protect young people from abuse of trust. Nevertheless, the House agreed the amendment, on a free vote, by 336 votes to 129. However, on 22 July, the amendment was rejected, on a free vote, in another place. When the Bill returned to the House on 28 July, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that we would not press the amendment but would reintroduce the legislation in the 1998–99 Session. The House then agreed not to reinstate the amendment in that Bill.
  In accordance with that commitment, the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill was introduced on 16 December 1998, this time containing provisions on both the age of consent and on abuse of trust. The Bill was overwhelmingly supported by the House, on a free vote, on Second Reading, by 313 votes to 130. It was then considered in detail in Committee. There are some hon. Members present tonight who participated in that detailed and useful consideration, as a result of which an amendment was accepted which, if my memory serves me well, came initially from the Opposition. The Bill was considered in detail in Committee, including on the Floor of the House, for 12 hours and 56 minutes. On Third Reading, the Bill was passed by 281 votes to 82, and was sent to another place, where it was refused a Second Reading, again on a free vote, by 222 votes to 146.
  We subsequently concluded that it was right to give Parliament a further opportunity to consider the issue. In response to a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen) on 23 July, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that the Government had, with the agreement of the applicants, sought a further extension of the European Court of Human Rights cases of Sutherland and Morris. As part of that application, we undertook to the court to reintroduce the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill this Session and said that, if necessary, the Parliament Acts would be used to secure its passage. That decision was reaffirmed in the Gracious Speech.
  I have listened to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), but tonight's motion can hardly have come as a surprise to him. The suggestion that this is in
  88
  some way a curtailment of the rights of Back Benchers does not bear examination. I think that, in the cold light of day, even he would accept that.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I have two simple factual questions for the Minister. Can he confirm that, if the Bill goes through this House on Thursday and goes to the other place, his colleagues there will have a free vote on Second Reading? Can he also confirm that the Lords will then be free to look, for the first time, at the abuse of positions of trust provisions if they want to?
  Mr. Boateng: These are all matters of conscience; they are matters for a free vote. It is not for me to speak of what will occur in the other place—that would be presumptuous.
  Mr. Tyler: Go on—why change the habits of a lifetime?
  Mr. Boateng: Do not tempt me—I must resist. The tradition has been that these should be seen as matters of conscience.
  In bringing the Bill back before Parliament, we have made it clear that we will resort to the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 if another attempt is made in another place to reject the Bill. We do not do that lightly. We understand that beliefs on the age of consent are strongly held, and we respect them. However, the Parliament Acts exist for a reason—to resolve disputes between the two Houses, such as the present one, in which the will of the elected House has been repeatedly frustrated by the unelected Chamber.
  The view of the House of Commons has been clear on every occasion on which the issues of the Bill has been debated. If it receives on Thursday the same overwhelming endorsement that it won in the previous Session, the repeated expressed will of the elected representatives of the people must ultimately prevail, in a democracy, over that of the unelected Chamber.
  Dr. Evan Harris: The right hon. Gentleman said a moment ago that he did not wish to be tempted, but I should like to draw him slightly forward because I proposed the amendment that the Government graciously accepted in the previous Session. Does he agree that the Bill is of precisely the type that could benefit if the other place agreed to hold a Committee stage, although, of course, the other place must not ultimately reject the Bill or delay its passage?
  Mr. Boateng: No, I shall not be tempted. My experience of the hon. Gentleman tells me that it unwise ever to be tempted by him on anything.
  Let me deal briefly with the constitutional principles surrounding use of the Parliament Acts. The hon. Member for Aylesbury suggested that our use of the Acts was some sort of innovation. It is not so; the War Crimes Act 1991 was a similar issue of conscience and morality on which different views were honestly held and persuasive arguments made on both sides. In that case, the Conservative Administration saw no constitutional impediment to using the Parliament Acts to enforce the will

  89
  of the House of Commons to enact a Bill on which there had been a free vote in both Houses. It is the same with the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman suggested that the other House would be free to consider any amendment that we might choose to attach to the Bill, under what he described as the "suggestions" procedure. We see no need to offer suggested amendments. We take the view that the Bill was thoroughly considered and amended during the previous Session, and we see no need for further amendment. The House thought it appropriate to send the Bill to the other place, and we believe that we should send it again. Between that date and this, nothing has changed that would affect the provisions then agreed. Of course, it remains open to the House of Lords to suggest any amendment. The Bill would then return to this place for our consideration.
  Against that background, I commend the procedural motion. The principles of the Bill are clear. It was considered exhaustively by the House during the previous session. We spent 23 hours and 15 minutes considering it. We do not need the formality of Committee or Report stages; nor do we need another Third Reading debate. The motion provides that no order should be made for the Bill's committal in the event of its receiving a Second Reading, and that it should be read the Third time with the Question being put forthwith, and decided, if opposed,
  "after the expiration of time for opposed business."
  The Bill deals with serious issues, but those issues have been repeatedly and exhaustively aired. No new issues have been raised in the Bill, which is identical to that sent to the other place in the previous Session. However, the House will have the opportunity on Thursday to discuss the substantive issue and to give its opinion on the Bill. We shall hear a wide range of opinion on the matter. If, as I am sure that it will, the House continues to believe that the Bill should proceed, that should happen as soon as possible without any need for additional and fruitless stages. I commend the motion to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, if the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill be read a second time, no Order shall be made for the committal of the Bill and it shall be ordered to be read a third time upon a future day; and upon a Motion being made for Third Reading the Question thereon shall be put forthwith and may be decided, though opposed, after the expiration of the time for opposed business.

  Census
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [25 January],
  That the words in item 1 'indicating whether an individual form is being completed by that member', the words in item 2 'and relationship to householder or joint householder or to the first person mentioned in the return, and, as the case may be, where there are 5 or less persons in the household, the relationship to each of the previous persons mentioned in the return and where there are 6 or more persons in the household, the relationship of the sixth and subsequent persons to the two previously mentioned persons in the return', the words in item 6 'and if married whether first or subsequent subsisting marriage', items 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, the words in item 15 'or was on a Government sponsored training scheme', items 16, 18(c), 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 of Schedule 2, and items 1, 2 and 3 of Schedule 3 to the draft Census Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 10th January, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
  Question agreed to.

  DELEGATED LEGISLATION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

  COMPETITION
  That the draft Competition Act 1998 (Land and Vertical Agreements Exclusion) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 19th January, be approved.
  That the draft Competition Act 1998 (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 19th January, be approved.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
  Question agreed to.

  Aluminium Recycling
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
  8.4 pm
  Ms Helen Southworth: I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss both the effects of Treasury fiscal policy on the recycling of aluminium and concerns that the climate change levy may create a perverse incentive that makes aluminium recycling economically less competitive.
  In my constituency, Latchford recycling plant—Europe's first dedicated aluminium can recycling facility—clearly demonstrates that aluminium recycling is one of the success stories of greening business. Commissioned in 1991, with investment of £28 million, it has sufficient capacity to recycle every aluminium can in the United Kingdom. Since 1991, the plant's output has grown by 40 per cent., and it recycles more than 4.5 billion cans a year. It provides employment for 143 people in Warrington.
  At the other side of the constituency lies one of the UK's biggest landfill sites, a huge hole in the countryside that consumes waste from a wide area, including greater Manchester. Unsurprisingly, local residents do not like being neighbours to a landfill site. They want people to sort at source and to recycle their waste rather than dump it.
  Last year, a local community association charged an entry fee of one aluminium can for recycling at its summer fair, recognising the crucial relationship between aluminium's intrinsic value and the fact that recycling can release that value and reduce landfill waste. Around 4.2 billion aluminium drinks cans were sold in the UK in 1998. If every can used in the UK were recycled, 13.5 million fewer dustbins would go into landfill. We would also save 280,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
  Aluminium is the most widely used non-ferrous metal in the world. Annual production of primary aluminium amounts to 20 million tonnes, which gives some idea of the size of the global market. It has a wealth of applications from transport to packaging, and from construction to engineering.
  Perhaps the most important point is that aluminium enjoys significant environmental advantages in comparison with similar materials. The low weight of aluminium frames used in cars and other vehicles means that the energy required to power them is significantly lower than would be the case for most other metals. A life cycle analysis of aluminium—taking into account the product's environmental impacts from cradle to grave rather than just its manufacturing costs—shows that a vehicle with an aluminium chassis may be 100 kg lighter, meaning a reduction in fuel consumption of 0.6 litres for every 100 km travelled. A tonne of aluminium used in place of steel would save 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the lifetime of a car.
  That environmental advantage was, no doubt, considered when the Government took their welcome decision to exempt energy use for electrolysis in primary aluminium smelting from the new climate change levy. By its nature, aluminium electrolysis has extremely limited scope for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. The Government's decision was an important step
  92
  towards safeguarding the competitiveness of the UK aluminium industry. Given the savings in energy that can result from use of aluminium rather than other metals, that was a wise decision, making environmental and economic sense.
  Generations of children know that the way to a "Blue Peter" badge lies in collecting aluminium milk bottle tops. Aluminium is infinitely recyclable, and it therefore has a high intrinsic value. Scrap metal can be refined or re-melted to make new aluminium products with virtually no degradation in quality. It can be recycled again and again, almost limitlessly.
  It is important to climate change that the energy required for secondary aluminium production amounts to just 5 per cent. of that needed for the primary product. Primary aluminium consumes 148,000 MJ of electricity per tonne of output. Secondary aluminium uses just 8,100 MJ for the same output. Recycling aluminium is a green activity.
  Secondary aluminium production has made enormous strides in the improvement of its energy efficiency. Part of that has been achieved simply by better housekeeping, but the industry has made a large investment in improving efficiency—£170 million over the past nine years. That has included sophisticated melting technology, new furnace design technology, burner design, energy recovery projects and fume arrestment equipment. Many producers have also been audited by bodies such as the energy technology support unit under the energy best practice programme.
  The industry plans to invest similar amounts over the next nine years, in order to make further efficiency improvements. It is a green industry with an environmental conscience.
  Most important, the industry has invested heavily not only in the infrastructure required to collect material for recycling, but in the educational programmes that encourage consumers to recycle—to change their normal practices. That has been at no cost to the taxpayer. It means that more aluminium is now recycled in Britain than ever before, in an increasingly energy efficient manner.
  In 1990, 503,000 tonnes of aluminium were recycled in the UK but, by 1998, as a result of the investment programme, the amount had increased to 858,300 tonnes—a 71 per cent. increase. To produce that amount of aluminium by recycling instead of by producing primary material effectively prevents 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission. That is a significant amount; not least because it is more than the whole UK annual commitment under the Kyoto protocol.
  Recycling rates are now as high as 90 per cent. in the transport sector and more than 70 per cent. in the building and construction sector. Even the packaging sector—the most important sector for my constituency—which has innate problems due to the logistics of recovering small quantities of used packaging from millions of households throughout the country, has now built up to a recycling rate of 36 per cent. for used drinks cans. That is the most recycled post-consumer beverage package in the UK.
  Higher rates of recycling mean that there is less demand for alumina and thus a correspondingly lower demand for bauxite ore. Recycling means that there is less need for bauxite to be mined in the first place, thus offering environmental protection. Nationally, aluminium

  93
  packaging recycling is a booming business in its own right. There are now five million recycling transactions every year. There are 50,000 collection groups nationally—20,000 of which are schools and colleges, which are recycling money back into their own operations. Britain has 400 aluminium recycling centres, as well as 120 collection programmes run by community groups. The industry provides jobs—at least 750 new jobs in aluminium packaging, collection and reprocessing in the past decade.
  Aluminium scrap has a high value. Collecting aluminium packaging to sell as scrap to secondary aluminium producers provides funds to numerous charities and local community groups—£10 million for local communities and charities every year. In 1998–99, the "Blue Peter" appeal collected 500 tonnes of aluminium, providing funds to build three new schools in Mozambique.
  Aluminium foil and can recycling has become a core activity for a growing number of social employment projects that provide skills and personal development training in a workshop setting. There are almost 40 projects providing aluminium recycling services for 70 local authority areas. Many of those are part of the new deal programme; not only do they produce valuable income, they give unemployed young people independence, self-esteem and structured work patterns and the opportunity to gain qualifications that lead to outside employment.
  Such projects combine environmental and social benefits and encourage the public to donate aluminium to benefit directly their local communities. It is no exaggeration to say that aluminium recycling proves that there can be a triple bottom line that works simultaneously in the economic, social and environmental spheres. For example, not only would the cans and foil currently recycled each year fill the dome, they would be worth more than £10 million to collectors. Perhaps more disconcertingly, we could still recycle another two domes-full—products worth £25 million are currently going into landfill.
  The competitiveness of secondary aluminium producers is finely balanced. The price of scrap metal is high and the infrastructure required to collect it is expensive. The costs of changing public behaviour to promote recycling are largely borne by the industry. Over the past 10 years, more than £40 million has been spent on the marketing, promotion and collection infrastructure in cans and foils alone.
  Recycled aluminium competes with primary aluminium in a market in which end prices are determined internationally. Currently, the cost of each is similar. As British primary aluminium electrolysis is made exempt from the climate change levy, recycled aluminium could be at a disadvantage. It is not only potentially anti-competitive, but illogical, to tax recycling as part of a levy whose stated purpose is to encourage energy saving and environmental best practice.
  Another key consideration is that scrap might be contaminated with paint, grease, oxides, plastics and so on. The more impurities that are present in the metal being recycled, the more energy is required to re-purify it. As the recycling of scrap metal increases, the greater proportion of impurities in the scrap means that it becomes more expensive to produce, and recycled aluminium becomes less competitive against aluminium produced from bauxite.
  94
  Companies aiming for stringent targets in energy consumption, under the negotiated agreements, are likely to refuse to process low-grade scraps, with low metal yield and contamination that must be removed—for example, coated foil. Those materials will end up as landfill—as waste. That is the precise opposite, environmentally, of what the climate change levy intends.
  The Government's decision to exempt the energy used by the electrolysis of primary aluminium is sensible and welcome; it safeguards the competitiveness of British industry within an overall framework of making the market work for the environment through incentivising energy efficiency. The Government's integrated climate change policies make them a pathfinder in European environmental policy, and we can justly be proud of that.
  At the same time, the Government have also shown that environmental policy can be sensitive to the needs of business and to the imperatives of competitiveness. The decision, announced in the pre-Budget statement, to increase the level of rebate to 80 per cent. for those businesses that have made negotiated agreements shows clearly that the Government's approach is environmentally and economically sensible, and was arrived at by listening to responsible industry voices.
  However, there is a danger that secondary aluminium will face a blow to its competitiveness by having to pay the climate change levy, while primary aluminium—due to the electrolysis exemption—receives a cost advantage. That situation would upset the fine balance of competitiveness between primary and secondary aluminium.
  It would be most inappropriate if the levy were inadvertently to penalise the aluminium recycling sector, which is one of the success stories of greening business. There is a real risk that the climate change levy could make the use of recycled aluminium more costly than that of primary aluminium and thus undermine the levy's environmental intentions.
  What might happen if secondary aluminium production is liable for the climate change levy, but electrolysis in primary aluminium smelting is not? Secondary aluminium would rapidly become less competitive than its primary counterpart. Demand for scrap metal in the UK would fall as the cost base increased. Aluminium scrap would then be exported to other countries.
  However, Britain would be exporting much more than scrap metal. Jobs in the secondary aluminium industry would also be exported and, given that a company producing 25,000 tonnes of aluminium ingot employs between 70 and 100 people, the number of jobs lost would be substantial. If companies have to relocate to places where energy costs are cheaper, Britain would also be exporting the tax revenues of those companies. The total annual value of the annual production of recycled aluminium from the UK's 60 reprocessing companies is £1.1 billion.
  Perhaps most ironically, Britain would be exporting the energy savings that can be made by the secondary aluminium industry. We have already seen how much less energy-intensive secondary aluminium production is than primary aluminium. If Britain inadvertently pushes secondary aluminium abroad because of the unintended effect of an environmental tax, we shall have made a grave error in terms of unemployment and lost a great opportunity

  95
  for energy savings that would count towards our Kyoto targets and our national contribution to safeguarding our planet's future.
  Secondary aluminium is an expanding industry. It fulfils a necessary and positive economic and environmental role. It is high-tech and saves energy, raw materials and waste to landfill. It provides 2,500 jobs and is investing for the future. It is an industry with added social value, allowing innumerable charities and community groups to raise vital funds.
  Aluminium recycling is an industry that Britain needs to encourage—and the best possible way to do that is to exempt the industry, and aluminium recycling, from the climate change levy.
  8.20 pm
  The Minister for Competitiveness (Mr. Alan Johnson): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Ms Southworth) on securing the debate and on her thoughtful and well-informed speech. I am aware of the tireless efforts that she has made to ensure that the importance of the United Kingdom aluminium industry and its products are properly recognised by the Government and others, especially through her role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the aluminium industry and through her membership of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry. I am also grateful to her for giving me advance notice of the issues that she has just brought to the attention of the House.
  The subject of the debate is important, as recycling is one of the key ways in which the metals industry can contribute to the greater goal of sustainable development. The Government are keen to work with the aluminium industry to find efficient ways of recycling this important material. The effective management of waste is central to achieving sustainable development. The Government are committed to achieving substantial increases in recycling rates. Our draft waste strategy, published last year, set out our goals of recycling or composting 25 per cent. of household waste by 2005 and, by the same date, reducing the amount of industrial and commercial waste that we landfill by 15 per cent. as compared with 1998 levels.
  Increasing recycling rates will help reduce the environmental impact of using primary raw materials and energy, and disposing of waste. It also offers a competitive opportunity to those businesses that can supply and use recycled materials.
  We have in place a number of measures to encourage increased recycling rates. The landfill tax encourages greater diversion of waste from landfill, and the standard rate is going up by £1 a tonne each year until a review in 2004. The producer responsibility initiative means that several industry sectors—including the packaging sector—are taking action to increase re-use, recovery and recycling rates. A Department of Trade and Industry recycling programme announced last October will tackle the market and technical barriers to increasing the use of recycled materials by manufacturing industry. Following that, the DTI and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions are jointly developing proposals for a programme to promote more sustainable waste management and expand the market for secondary raw materials.
  96
  The Government are grateful to the UK aluminium industry for the commitment that it has shown in its negotiations with DETR on an agreement to reduce energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases. I understand that the Aluminium Federation is at the forefront of the energy-intensive sectors involved in these discussions, and that it expects to be one of the first trade associations to sign heads of agreement during the coming weeks. Once a full agreement has been concluded, eligible sites within the sector will be able to benefit from an 80 per cent. discount in the rate of the climate change levy.
  It is useful to have my hon. Friend's views on the climate change levy. I emphasise that the Government are seeking to design and implement the levy in a way that maximises the environmental benefits and safeguards competitiveness. We have been trying to work with business as much as possible on the design of the levy, and we have been listening to its views.
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor responded to concerns expressed by business about the impact of the levy on competitiveness by announcing, in his 9 November pre-Budget report, a number of refinements to the original proposals. My right hon. Friend announced a discount of 80 per cent. for those sectors entering energy use agreements with the Government, and reconfirmed the exemption of electricity used in the primary smelting of aluminium. Those are moves to safeguard the competitiveness of energy-intensive sectors of industry exposed to international competitive pressures. However, there was much more in the pre-Budget report announcements for all sectors of business which, in the context of aluminium, means both primary and secondary producers.
  All sectors will benefit from the proposed reduction in the main rates of the levy from those published at the time of the 1999 Budget. All sectors will gain from the trebling of Government assistance to business for energy efficiency measures, including the introduction of a new system of enhanced capital allowances. All sectors can lower their levy liabilities by using electricity generated in good-quality heat-and-power plants or from new forms of renewable electricity.
  I acknowledge the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, South expressed so eloquently about the impact of the climate change levy on aluminium recycling. I emphasise that we take that issue very seriously. We are working to ensure that the climate change levy should not cut across other environmental policy objectives. We certainly do not want to discourage aluminium recycling, which is one of the success stories of greening business, as my hon. Friend said. The Government are trying to deal with this issue in the context of the negotiated agreements. We are giving careful consideration to proposals on this issue which have been made by the Aluminium Federation.
  The question of eligibility for the climate change negotiated agreements has also been raised. Not all businesses engaged in aluminium recycling are eligible. We have said that eligibility will be determined on the basis of regulation under the European Union integrated pollution prevention and control directive. Installations covered by IPPC will be legally identifiable and subject to a regulatory requirement, in terms of having to operate in an energy-efficient manner, to which other non-IPPC sites will not be subject.

  97
  IPPC captures the main energy-intensive sectors of industry. However, the Chancellor said in his pre-Budget report that the Government would still be prepared to consider suggestions from business for alternative approaches to IPPC, provided those targeted the discount on energy-intensive sectors exposed to international competition. However, any alternative proposals would have to meet certain criteria: they would have to have a clear rationale, provide legal certainty, have administrative simplicity and be consistent with EU state aid rules.
  I know that several industry trade associations have made representations on this issue—and that the Aluminium Federation is a party to one proposal, put forward jointly by a group of trade associations. We shall give fair consideration to all other suggestions received—in advance of the forthcoming Budget.
  However, I believe that it is important to make clear exactly what is at stake. The Government are offering the 80 per cent. levy to those in negotiated agreements but in return for commitment to challenging energy use targets, which will entail significant investments. The result should be environmental and competitiveness gains.
  The Alcan recycling plant, which is in my hon. Friend's constituency, is a key part of the infrastructure in the UK for achieving the recovery and recycling targets in the EC directive on packaging and packaging waste. The directive requires us to recover 50 per cent. of all packaging waste and to recycle 25 per cent. in 2001. They are particularly challenging targets for us in the UK because we have started from a lower base than many of our European neighbours.
  We are committed to achieving the targets in the EC directive through the UK's packaging waste regulations. These form part of the UK's producer responsibility initiative, in which a number of sectors are taking action to increase their levels of re-use, recovery and recycling.
  In recent years, there has been increasing awareness that market failures may affect the expansion and development of the UK's recycling activities. New and proposed EU legislation on waste, and the review of the waste strategy for England and Wales, have highlighted the issue.
  The market development group set up by Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions in July 1998 has investigated the barriers to expanding the markets for recycled goods. The group's key recommendation was that the identification and development of new markets for recycled goods should be taken forward as a priority measure. In the case of aluminium, though, the group found that the main barriers to increased recycling were the quality and quantity of the metal collected: more metal could be recycled if it could be collected economically. There did not appear to be any failure in demand; the key issue, therefore, was one of supply.
  In line with the commitment given in our draft waste strategy for England and Wales, the Government are now considering options for establishing a joint DETR-DTI sustainable waste action programme. The joint programme would promote an integrated approach to materials resource use and waste management.
  98
  Valuable lessons are being learned from the DTI's own one-year recycling programme, which is being seen as the precursor to the joint programme. The DTI programme expects to attract a number of worthwhile projects designed to create demand for recycled materials by overcoming technical and market barriers.
  Local authority waste collection authorities are under a duty to collect household waste, including recyclables. Many provide kerbside facilities to facilitate recycling and therefore encourage the public to recycle. Waste collection authorities are also under a duty to draw up and implement waste recycling plans. The DETR issued guidance in March 1998 on "Preparing and Revising Local Authority Recycling Strategies and Recycling Plans", and asked waste collection authorities to investigate whether their plans needed updating. Most authorities have undertaken the investigation and are revising their recycling plans.
  Waste disposal authorities have to provide recycling facilities in the form of civic amenity sites. The provision of such sites encourages residents to recycle. Historically, there has been an operational role for both private sector companies and the public sector in waste disposal.
  Waste collection authorities and waste disposal authorities are being encouraged to work together on integrated waste management to promote recycling more effectively through the use of joint waste management strategies. The Government expect waste disposal authorities and waste collection authorities to work as one in the delivery of waste management services—encouraging, for example, joint municipal waste strategies and joint waste management contracts under best value where appropriate.
  Co-operation and good communication between collection and disposal authorities, waste planners, the Environment Agency, industries and voluntary organisations provide maximum benefits from an integrated approach to municipal waste management. Local authorities also promote recycling through education—for example by giving presentations to schools. The Government also work with the local authority recycling advisory committee, which has a major influence on recycling, with meetings and activities taking place nationally and regionally.
  In summary, aluminium, like the other major non-ferrous metals, is infinitely recyclable and therefore well placed to make a valuable contribution to sustainability and a better quality of life for all. The Government will continue to work closely with the industry to ensure that policy continues to improve the recycling performance of aluminium. The Government are keen to keep up the momentum generated by these events so that the global benefits of continuing to use and reuse these metals are available for future generations.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Nine o'clock.