Social Security

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the rises in benefits and the state pension. It would have been unthinkable not to raise benefits by inflation and equally unthinkable not to increase the state pension in line with the triple lock. The Government have done the right thing—these are the right decisions—and I will happily support these orders in the unlikely event of a Division.

I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), that this is not the most exciting piece of parliamentary theatre, even though we are spending tens of billions through these orders. The House is empty, these instruments go through on the nod, we cannot amend them, and the whole process creates a load of uncertainty for people who have to live on these benefits. I agree that, if we are going to find the money to put these benefits up—quite rightly by the two highest amounts in my 14 years in this place and probably going back a lot further—let us just change the process and have a default increase by CPI and in line with the triple lock so that we do not have to go through all this uncertainty. In what scenario now are we not going to increase benefits and the state pension by CPI or the triple lock?

If any future Government want to do something different, they could just bring in a Bill, as George Osborne did in the early years of the coalition. The House would be required to give its assent to that change, but we would not have to go through the uncertainty and the annual campaign to get to where we all think we are going to get to anyway, which does not help anybody. It would spare the Minister this afternoon’s excitement and the confusion of what is in which of these orders, which he might appreciate. I will leave that one for the Minister and see whether he is remotely tempted by it.

With the crazy process we currently have, we have come to the right answer, but I still do not really believe that we are in a sensible position. We have to use September’s inflation for an April increase in benefits, and we have to have an uprating order quite a while after the Chancellor has announced it in the Budget. The Work and Pensions Committee recommended that the Government bring these orders before the House earlier than February, so I commend the Government—we are still in January. I suppose that is positive progress, although I do not quite know why we could not have done this in November, to get that certainty.

I hope, as the years go by, one year we will get some good news, and the Minister will say, “We have so many people on universal credit who we know we can uprate far more quickly, but actually we can use a much later inflation number because the amount of manual processing we have to do for the old benefits is much less of a work demand than it used to be.” We could then move to using December’s inflation figure to bring the benefit increase much nearer the actual cost of living and avoid the horrible situation we have currently where we are effectively six months behind, and, in the meantime, there has been a huge spike and people cannot afford to pay their bills. Perhaps the Minister could update the House on whether we are any nearer the prospect of a slightly more sensible process where we are not using out-of-date information to give people a rise in benefits that is already six months old, which exposes a load of risk in that situation.

There is also a lot of noise about the triple lock being unsustainable and suggestions that we will have to get rid of it because we cannot afford to give pensioners that level of increase. I cannot think of any justification for ever giving people who are reliant on a state pension and who have no possibility of going back to work an increase of less than inflation; it would be an intolerable situation to put people in. I think we have established over many long and painful years that giving pensioners less than earnings is not a very attractive position. We had that for a while, before the coalition Government quite rightly reversed it as one of the first things we did when we came to power 14 years ago.

I do not know why we have to have speculation around the idea of taking away the link to inflation or earnings—it is utterly impossible. I suppose we all wish that the 2.5% was a relevant consideration for us, but it looks like it might be a few years before we have to worry about that part of the triple lock kicking in. The problem is that the rise in earnings and the rise of inflation have got out of step and are in two different financial years. We are therefore effectively giving that increase twice, because we give it on inflation in year one, and then, when pay rises catch up in year two, we end up giving it again, and we have accidentally given a much higher amount over a period than either inflation or earnings. If that is what risks the long-term future of the triple lock, does the Minister think that a rolling two-year or three-year average would fix that? If that is the price of making the triple lock safe in the long term, I would pay it. I would not choose it, but if that stops the uncertainty over the whole thing being affordable, it would be better. Perhaps the Minister could help us with a better process for future years.

I fully support these orders and I will happily vote for them in the unlikely event that we get to a vote.