Social Security Advisory Committee: Winter Fuel Payment

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the situation is different in different parts of the country. In Scotland, it is complicated by the fact that this is the first year it is devolved, so we have had to legislate in a different way to enable us to do that for Scotland but not for elsewhere in the UK. The Government have sought to make sure, by writing, across the piece, to 12 million pensioners, that we are directly engaging and that people are as aware as possible. There are also campaigns going on with partners in local government and voluntary organisations, as well as a media campaign on radio, television and social media. I will certainly check, go back and review that, and if I have any concerns that it is not being done appropriately in some parts of the United Kingdom, I will very happily come back to the noble Lord.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

As my noble friend says—I will get it right this time—we now have the letter from the Secretary of State. I am sorry to have to press her on this, but the Government consistently fail to answer the first question raised by the committee. I asked the same question in a Written Question during the recess and, again, it was not answered. The committee wants to know,

“the offsetting cost of different levels of additional Pension Credit take-up”.

I too asked that question, and saying that the OBR has signed off the figures is not an answer.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the OBR listed certified costings if nobody claimed pension credit, and costings on the assumption, which was also our assumption, that there would be a five percentage-point increase in that. It seems to me that that gives the entire range, and between that, presumably one could do the sums. I think that that does answer the question.

State Pension: Age Increase

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what preparations they are making to inform people born on or after 6 April 1960 about the increase in their state pension age from 66 to 67 which will be implemented over the period 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2028.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that information about the state pension age is crucial to retirement planning and are committed to communicating planned state pension age changes effectively. The department undertakes a range of activities, including awareness campaigns, digital tools such as “Check your State Pension age” and sending personalised letters. We are developing our strategy to communicate information and assessing the most effective ways to raise awareness about state pension age changes.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her Answer. I remain concerned that we are only 17 months away from when people discover that they are not able to retire at the date that they thought they would. We know where this ends up: a finding of maladministration by the ombudsman and mass discontent. I urge the noble Lord, the noble Minister, the Baroness, to make sure that a mass campaign is initiated soon. Many people have an aversion to opening brown envelopes; we need this to be highlighted in the press for the next 17 months.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I answer to anything really. The Government have already used an array of methods to communicate state pension age changes, including leaflets, advertising campaigns, digital tools and directly writing to everybody affected. Between December 2016 and May 2018, DWP wrote to all those in the group my noble friend is talking about—that is, those born between 6 April 1960 and 5 April 1961, which includes me—who have state pension ages between 66 and 67. In 2016, DWP launched a tool “Check your State Pension age” on GOV.UK and also “Check your State Pension forecast”. More than 31 million digital forecasts have been done plus another 1.5 million paper forecasts. I think it is working. The 2021 Planning and Preparing for Later Life survey talked to exactly those people and found that, of those with a pension age between 66 and 67, 94% either correctly identified their state pension age or overestimated it.

Pension Credit

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 4th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government want all eligible pensioners to apply for pension credit. The Government have written to pensioners providing advice about claiming pension credit following the change to the winter fuel payment, alongside a range of other creative media campaigns. We are engaging directly with pensioners as well as with stakeholders, including devolved Governments, councils and charities, in a joint effort to raise awareness through our combined networks and channels.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I was so with the noble Lord for the first 20 seconds—all the way. I am grateful for his congratulations to the department, and I shall take them back to my colleagues, who are doing a brilliant job on this front. We have written to around 12 million pensioners about the change to the winter fuel allowance, so a lot of work has been done out there to encourage people to apply—and it is having an effect. We have seen a 152% increase in pension credit claims received by the DWP in the eight weeks following the announcement on the winter fuel payment compared to the eight weeks before, and that will be updated towards the end of the month.

On the costs at the end, obviously, a lot of these claims have to be processed and we will not know for some time down the road. However, it is very clear that the DWP wants everybody who is eligible to do so to claim pension credit. As I have said before, if we end up with more people claiming the money to which they are entitled, that is a good thing. Pensioners deserve the money to which they are entitled.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for jumping in too quickly. My noble friend the Minister gave the figure of 500 additional staff in an Answer to a Written Question from me earlier in the Session. What was not clear from her reply was when the 500 extra staff would be in post and fully trained to provide the service required to achieve the take-up of pension credit that we all want to see.

Women’s State Pension Age: PHSO Report

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, if I could persuade—with some trepidation—the noble and learned Baroness to share the details with me, I would be very happy to look into that.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, the ombudsman made it clear that these women suffered from maladministration and that they are entitled to redress. I ask my noble friend to recognise the case for urgency, particularly because the delay is leaving the people affected prey to scammers, who are offering to assist them in making claims. This issue needs to be resolved as quickly as practical.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising that last point. To be absolutely clear, because there has been no response to the report, there is no compensation scheme. Anyone claiming to offer it is scamming and nobody should touch it—please can that message go out loud and clear. I understand my noble friend’s general point, and I know he will understand the position that this Government are in. At the risk of boring myself, never mind the House, all I can do is repeat that the Government are looking very closely at the findings of the ombudsman and will respond as soon as is practicable.

Pension Credit

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many people (1) claimed, and (2) were eligible to claim, Pension Credit in each of the past three financial years.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, in answer to the first part of the Question, the numbers of people claiming pension credit were: in 2019-20, 1.49 million, in 2021, 1.41 million, and in 2021-22, 1.35 million. In answer to the second part, we cannot know precisely how many people are eligible to claim pension credit because we do not hold data on their circumstances, but we make estimates based on surveying pensioners and extrapolating from there. On that basis, we estimate that in 2019-20, 2.26 million were eligible. No figures are available for 2020-21 because the pandemic restricted the number of face-to-face interviews that could be done, and that were necessary to collect the data. In 2021-22, there were 2.15 million.

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[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her Answer and express my great pleasure at seeing her in her place. But, her Answer makes it clear that many of the poorest pensioners—not just those who fail to claim credit, but those with an income slightly higher than that—will suffer from the cut to the winter fuel payment. Does she agree that seeking a replacement for the anomalous tax-free cash payment should only follow a thorough and detailed review, rather than this rushed, information-lite and damaging decision?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend—for everything up to the “But”. The Government are having to take what is a difficult decision at this time for the very simple reason that we inherited a £22 billion pressure on public finances.

Occupational Pension Schemes (Governance and Registration) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the regulations. I always prefer to speak after my noble friend Lady Drake and to say that I agree strongly. It can leave the impression that I might have made the same points as forcibly, so I get the credit without any of the hard work that has been put in.

However, on this occasion, I will reinforce this issue of regulations. Just read the regulations as presented to us: this is not a sensible way to tell people how to run their pension schemes. However, it is too late; we have adopted this pattern and we just have to pile regulations upon regulations. We have the report from the committee, and I hope its views will be borne in mind. There is so much to do, and to do it with regulations requires this continual production of additional regulations, but who really understands them? We require the guidance from the Pensions Regulator, so in fact we have two sets: you can look at the regulations and at the guidance. I wish we had not gone down this road of setting out how pension funds should run.

I can claim some experience here because I was a pensions regulator. I was a member of the Occupational Pensions Board, and we introduced contracting out—you can tell it was a long time ago. We made a much better job of telling people what they could, should and should not do. We introduced this extremely complicated process of contracting out over a relatively short period and we did it through issuing guidance. The guidance was what ruled. Clearly, we had very strong enforcement powers, because if people did not follow our guidance they did not get their certificate, so they had to follow our guidance—I suspect it is not quite the same here. In that sense it was a much simpler task. I really feel that some deep thought needs to be given as to how the requirements on schemes should be set out. Doing it by regulations is manifestly not the way to do it but it is the way we have adopted. We are there now, and it would be very difficult to pull back. However, this has some impact on how the regulations are drafted, presented and handled.

Of course, one problem is that the industry will always be one step ahead, so it is not as if we will ever reach a final steady state of regulations—there will be continued processes. All I am asking for, in support of my noble friend, is that an overall view is taken of the way regulations are introduced and incorporated in the structure of pensions law. There is a much better way of doing it. Thirteen SIs in one year strikes one as absurd.

I conclude with a trivial point. I have always been fascinated by this—I have seen these things for many years, not only since becoming a Member of this noble House. What is the strict distinction between Explanatory Notes and Explanatory Memoranda? I told your Lordships that this is extremely trivial, but I note that “the Pensions Regulator” gets a small “t” in the Explanatory Note and a capital “T” in the Explanatory Memorandum.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, for those watching at home, I have just managed to pour water all over my speech, so I hope that noble Lords will bear with me if at points it ceases to make any sense.

I thank the Minister for her introduction to these regulations and all noble Lords who have spoken. Like my noble friend Lord Davies, I am delighted to speak after my noble friend Lady Drake—we all are. We all learn something from every time she contributes, and I thank her for her expertise and hard work on this.

Pensions Regulator (Employer Resources Test) Regulations 2021

Debate between Lord Davies of Brixton and Baroness Sherlock

Monday 6th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I am glad that it was an accountant who made the comment that profits can be whatever you want them to be, which was my concern. However, I am struggling to grasp what role this is playing. In some ways, I suspect that we could overengineer the definition of “resources” and make it very complicated. There are strong arguments for keeping it as simple as possible so that the regulator can take a holistic view. This is what I understood the process to be. My guess is that the regulations will enable the regulator to do what we always thought it could do in the first place, and it tripped over some regulatory legal point. There are strong arguments in favour of keeping it simple and leaving it essentially to the judgment of the regulator.

Whenever I mention the regulator, I have to add my qualification that of course it does not represent scheme members in any way. It does not have the accumulated knowledge of unions and employers who actually do the business of agreeing pension schemes. I have questions about the Pensions Regulator but the ideal should be a Pensions Regulator that knows the field and can apply the test proportionately.

I have one specific question. I have no idea what this means. Regulation 4(8) says that

“the Regulator must take into account all relevant information in its possession”.

Well, yes, it is not going to take into account information that is not in its possession. However, it goes on to use the word “verification”. I am not sure what “verification” is doing in that paragraph.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of the reasoning and intent behind the employer resources test, and all noble Lords who have spoken. I too welcome a move to strengthen the power of the Pensions Regulator. We should say that most employers with DB schemes act professionally and responsibly and maintain good relations with their scheme trustees. However, the Pension Schemes Act 2021, from which these regulations flow, rightly gave the Pensions Regulator stronger powers to deal with the small number of circumstances where parties decide to evade their obligations to their pension schemes or behave recklessly. The test is whether these measures will enable the regulator’s approach to be clearer, quicker and tougher. This is what we are exploring today, so I hope that the Minister can help to reassure us on that point.

I will not go back over what the regulations do, but as we have heard, employer resources will be assessed through normalised annual profit before tax, with non-recurring or exceptional items removed. The Minister explained how that would happen: you would take NAPBT, the regulator would then look at the impact on NAPBT caused by the act or the failure to act, produce an adjusted NAPBT and then decide whether to issue a contribution notice. It would compare the two and then argue that the reduction was material in relation to the estimated Section 75 debt.

The case for the test must be that it removes the evidential challenges and uncertainties in forecasting how the employer might or might not perform in the future— absent the act or failure to act—and therefore presumably would provide a quicker measure of assessing the employer’s ability to support the scheme and reveal whether a reduction in resources was material.