Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The policy to which the hon. Lady refers relates to new cases. I remind her that relative poverty is down by 100,000 children since 2010.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

11. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that people have accurate and clear information to inform decisions on the use of their pension investments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Pensions (Richard Harrington)]

The Government are committed to providing free impartial guidance through Pension Wise to help people make informed and confident decisions about how they use their defined-contribution pension savings in retirement.

[Mary Robinson]

What further steps is the Department taking, working with other Departments, to ensure that protections are in place for those in receipt of their pensions who may be at risk of falling foul of financial scams in their retirement?

[Richard Harrington]

I thank my hon. Friend for that really important question. She can be reassured that a cross-Government consultation on further measures to tackle pension scams closed very recently—on 13 February —and it included a proposal to ban all cold calling in relation to pensions. We will announce our next steps once we have considered the responses we have received to the consultation, but I assure her that we will take action as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

As my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment explained, the data are now held in a different way. They are entirely owned by the claimants, who can and should give any Member of Parliament permission to act on their behalf. With that permission, all of us can do our job, as we traditionally have, on behalf of our constituents.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

T5. Last October, the Secretary of State announced that people with severe lifelong conditions would be exempt from reassessments for employment and support allowance. This was welcomed by leading charities in the sector. Will motor neurone disease fall within the exemptions?

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

May I first praise the work of the all-party group on motor neurone disease, and the work of my hon. Friend as its vice-chair? Following the announcement, we are working to develop a set of criteria to switch off reassessments for people with the most severe health conditions or disabilities. We have sought feedback from stakeholders, including many motor neurone disease organisations. They will not be about a specific list of medical conditions; they will be based on a number of other factors, in particular how conditions are impacting on people.