Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

There is now this wide debate on what the state flat-rate pension should be; I want to see the debate take place. Given what I have quoted today, 8% or so this year seems reasonably modest as a step towards achieving that figure while moving towards a long-term objective. We need a new pensions commission to tell us what that figure should be. I hope that the Government agree that this is an issue they need to address, and that they will commission work and arrive at some sort of objective for the flat-rate pension. Part of the problem we have in today’s debate is that we are discussing the increase, not the target.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)]

My Lords, if Amendment 2 is agreed to, Amendment 3 will not be called due to pre-emption.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton and his detailed remedy for future problems, and the call for an 8.1% increase in the state pension. DWP has not given us the median numbers, but the pre-2016 average or mean state pension is £155.08 while the post-2016 figure is £164. 23. It seems that the older you are, the lower the pension you actually get.

Discrimination against senior citizens is built into the system itself, which is wrong: 8.1% of that tiny amount is very small. A correspondent who contacted me from New Zealand said, “In New Zealand Super, there is a phrase that at 65, you get 65—at 65 you retire and you get 65% of average wage.” That is at least two and a half times more as a fraction of average wage than it is in the UK, where it is impossible for anyone really to live on it.

We have heard from many Members of your Lordships’ House that the state pension is the only or main source of income for many, many people. I do not know whether Ministers speak to ordinary people to hear their experiences of trying to manage poverty. I will read out just one message that I have received from a senior person: “I am struggling to pay my rent, buy food and pay for gas, electricity and water. TV is my only source of company and the government is now taking that away too. I can’t afford to buy a TV licence. It would be better for me to go to prison. At least I will be warm and I will also be fed.”

Earlier, the Minister rattled off a whole range of pension benefits that people can collect. Will she tell the House how a 75 year-old with no TV for company, with one heating bar in a room, with no access to the internet and with her local library shut, gets access to those benefits and asks for help? I should be very grateful if she can describe to the House how that person can make ends meet on this meagre state pension.

We have institutionalised poverty in this country and the voice of the poor is not being heard, so I fully support my noble friend’s call for a pensions commission. However, people cannot wait for that. We need an 8.1% increase now.