§ Mr. Nigel JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what estimate he has made of the cost of abolishing the rule on freezing state pensions for those citizens entitled to state pensions who reside in countries for which the United Kingdom has an aid programme; and if he will make a statement; [148536]
(2) how many individuals in each country for which Her Majesty's Government has an aid programme who are entitled to a United Kingdom state pension have them frozen; and if he will make a statement on his policy on frozen pensions. [148537]
§ Malcolm WicksInformation on the number of individuals in each country for which this Government has an aid programme who receive a frozen UK State Pension is not available.
However, there were 60,000 recipients of a frozen UK State Pension in the twenty countries receiving the largest amount of UK bilateral aid in 2002–03. The cost of now paying those frozen pensions, using the April 2004 rates, would be around £40 million, with ongoing costs of £40million per annum and rising in future years.
The UK State Pension is uprated in countries with which the UK has a reciprocal social security agreement or where there is a legal requirement to do so. The Government are focusing their resources on helping poorer pensioners in the UK and have no plans to unfreeze UK State Pensions paid overseas.
1176WNotes:
Caseloads have been produced using the DWP Pensions administrative dataset for March 2003.
The nominal costs are calculated using 2004 pension rates, and deflated to 2003–04 price terms.
§ Helen JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average increase in income has been for pensioners in Warrington, North since the introduction of the minimum income guarantee. [148249]
§ Malcolm WicksThe information requested is not available.
The average income support award to pensioners in Warrington, North was £37.36 in August 1998, when 2,200 pensioner households were receiving income support. Under Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG), which was introduced in April 1999, there were 2,800 pensioner households in Warrington, North receiving an average of £44.29 a week in MIG in August 2003.
In December 2003 there were 3,426 pensioner households receiving an average of £41.19 a week Pension Credit in Warrington, North.
Following the introduction of Pension Credit in October 2003, some elements of the support previously provided through MIG are now provided through local authority funding for people in care homes, and through tax credits for children. In addition, average Pension Credit awards are expected to be lower than MIG because a savings credit of up to £14.79 (single) or £19.20 (couples) is available for people with modest incomes above the guarantee level who previously received nothing from MIG.
As at 31 December, the average level of weekly gain shared by the 1.44 million households now receiving more money as a result of Pension Credit introduction is £10.80.
Notes:
1. MIG caseload figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and are expressed in thousands, weekly amounts to the nearest penny.
2. MIG figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample, and are therefore subject to a degree of sampling variation.