Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

As my hon. Friend knows, our goal is to have a retirement income based on the foundation of a simple, single, decent state pension—the legislation on this was announced in the Queen’s Speech—complemented by automatic enrolment into a workplace pension, so people have a pension based on their national insurance and a pension of their own with a contribution from both the employer and the taxpayer. That is a good combination to build on.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

What does the Minister have to say to my constituent, a 91-year-old pensioner who is occupying a four-bedroom property and has been told that, because the priority has to be given to allocating smaller homes to people currently being hit by the bedroom tax, she has no immediate prospect of being housed in smaller, more suitable accommodation?

[Steve Webb]

We expect social landlords to manage their housing stock effectively, and many social landlords have put in place schemes to enable older tenants to trade down, which many of them would want to do. If the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent is 91, I would think the housing association in question has had plenty of time to do something about that.