Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

One thing we are considering is whether the data we hold about people can be used better. We are therefore undertaking a modest research study, drawing on data that my Department and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs hold to see whether we can identify people who look as if they ought to be getting pension credit but who are not doing so. We will then make automatic payments to them, and test how that works over a pilot period, on which we will report in the summer.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Rumour has it that the Minister believes that introducing a universal pension will be a solution to many of the problems in the pension system. If that is the case, why has he not published the Green Paper we were promised in December? Is it because he is facing some resistance from the Treasury?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I can do no more than quote my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who told the House in November:

“The Treasury is working with the Department for Work and Pensions on potential pension reform that could simplify pensions and provide a boost to pensioners for many years to come.”—[Official Report, 16 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 726.]

How right he was.