State Pension: Triple Lock

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, if my noble friend has lots of good ideas about filling in the financial black hole this Government inherited, I would certainly be glad to hear them, and so too would my colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So I encourage him to make a Budget submission and I look forward to reading it.

On the question of pensioners, we were very careful. Means testing the winter fuel payment was not a decision we wanted to take, and we were careful to protect the poorest pensioners—those entitled to pension credit. Those who get pension credit can also find themselves accessing a wide range of other passported benefits that will help support them. We also managed, despite the circumstances, to find the money to maintain the household support fund and to extend it into next year, so that, if there are people still struggling, there is help for them.

There is also plenty of other help and a range of support out there for pensioners, including the warm home discount and cold weather payment. I understand how tough this is. I know that the cost of living is high but the Government are determined to do all they can to make things as easy as possible for people despite the circumstances.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, it is interesting to note that, at the recent general election, the average voter in the average constituency was aged over 55. The demographics are interesting; there are lots of these people, and they matter. The last Government recognised and addressed pension poverty, and the need to support pensioners. The Minister will know that we took 200,000 pensioners out of absolute poverty. Those figures go back to 2010. I find it extraordinary that Labour’s own analysis shows a reversal of 25% of this in the first year alone. On the pensions review, can the Minister tell us a bit more about the timing—when we are going to see some action? In my view, this is yet another review, of many. We are not really seeing action.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

That was a little ungracious, I fear, but I will unpick those points one at a time. First, on poverty, let us have a little statistics duel. The last Labour Government lifted a million pensioners out of poverty. Meanwhile, relative pensioner poverty saw a slight increase in the decade between 2010-11, when Labour was last in power, and 2022-23, the period for which we have the latest statistics. We all have challenges to face here, but this Government are determined to work on that.

On the pensions review, as I have explained to the noble Viscount before, stage 1 was focused on making sure that the market was working properly. Stage 2, which follows next, will focus on making sure that we have the appropriate levels of saving in the market and that people have the vehicles in which to invest. We are determined to do this but we cannot fix the entire pensions market overnight. If we tried to do that, we would make mistakes and the noble Viscount would take me to task, rightly, for those. We will do this in the right time, not the fastest time.