Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Those women will, of course, receive a state pension up to two years before a man born on the same day and have the option of being treated in the same way as a man—for example, they could defer their pension for two years and get an extra 20% for deferral. That is an option. We cannot bring the measure forward, however, because the occupational pension sector needs time. The only way we could treat men and women identically would be to delay until 2019, but if we did that many more women would be excluded.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T2. Given that one in six of the adult population is functionally illiterate, what training is provided to jobcentre staff to help identify and signpost adults with literacy issues?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point: poor literacy and numeracy are big barriers to employment. For that reason, personal advisers in jobcentres are trained to identify signs and to signpost people to appropriate course providers. Fareham college in the constituency adjacent to hers is one such provider, but I am sure there are other local providers.