Pension Schemes Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Anne Begg

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

That is a helpful clarification, but we have still had the bizarre situation in which the Pensions Regulator is responsible for auto-enrolment even though most of the schemes into which people are enrolled are not regulated by the Pensions Regulator. I sense that we are introducing further uncertainty into what schemes there are and people need to understand exactly what is going on.

Trying to create a new form of pension that can try to stop the bleed away from defined benefits is the right direction in which to travel. If we are to have a credible pensions industry, we need to ensure that people can have certainty or at least confidence that if they keep paying into their pension funds with their employers at the rate that they are they will have some idea what they will get rather than a vague hope that they might at some point get something suitable. That is the thing that does most discredit to the pensions industry. People end up getting so much less than they thought they would, despite what they thought they were paying and would be entitled to, that they decide the whole thing is not worth doing at all.

That question takes us to a fundamental part of pensions policy. We are spending a lot of taxpayers’ money on tax relief for pensions and if we end up with just a glorified savings vehicle with no direct link to pensions, we must wonder whether we will be distorting the investment market quite horribly. We need a clear and confident link, so that people know that the money they are putting away is meant to get a retirement income that they are happy with and is not just a super-glorified pre-tax income ISA, which I fear we might be drifting towards.

The Work and Pensions Committee considered the principle of collective schemes briefly in our inquiry on a pension governance a couple of years ago. The idea that we can somehow share risk between the generations, smoothing things out so that if there is a market crash just before someone expects to retire they do not suddenly have their pension income destroyed in a way that they cannot possibly recover from—clearly, that can be smoothed out by reducing the risk profile of investments, as is done now—looks to be a perfectly sensible and attractive way forward. I am a little intrigued about how we can go from having none of those schemes to having them in place, having enough people in them and having enough confidence that people will continue to join them to ensure that the intergenerational thing can work. Some European countries have had such schemes for 60 years and we can see how they work, but the question is how we go from zero to having three generations of people without the first lot thinking that they are taking all the risk for no advantage, although perhaps if their grandchildren join it might all be okay. I am sure that the industry will work out how to devise schemes in a way that will get people involved.

Let me turn to greater flexibility in the pension world. I can see that if we say that we do not think people are sufficiently engaged with pensions to join a scheme we must ask how we can be confident that they are sufficiently engaged to make even more difficult choices when they retire about what they want to do. There is a big difference. I might not be too bothered about pensions when I am 30, as I might have more pressing things to think about such as buying a house, paying for my children or sorting out other stuff, but perhaps when I am closer to retirement age and thinking about what my income will be in six months’ time, a year’s time or perhaps even a little further away, I will probably be much more engaged in the best choices for me and will perhaps be more inclined to go out and look at the various options.

One issue that we have had until this point has been that the option has been to have some kind of annuity that is lower than I would like. If I try to shop around, I find differing levels of things I do not like. That is not a great motivation to go shopping. If I know that I am not going to want to buy any of the things I am offered but I have to, I might as well just default to the first thing I get. There does not seem to be any advantage to shopping around.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that often when there is too much choice people are paralysed and end up grabbing at the first thing that comes along rather than the thing which is best?

[Nigel Mills]

Yes. Some data suggest that the optimum number of choices is four. If there are 20 choices in a mobile phone shop, people walk out without buying one. If there are not enough, they do not ever have a phone. We need enough choice to see a difference, but not so much that we are completely baffled by our options.

I think that we are hoping that the market will innovate certain things that will mean it will not be a choice of annuity into which we will opt for life that will give the same amount for the rest of our lives or some kind of draw-down in which we keep spending our pots and hoping that they will last. I suspect that we will end up with people taking some kind of fixed guaranteed income, so that no matter how long they live they will have the quality of life that they want, but they might be able to choose to use some of the rest of their money to fund travelling in early retirement, paying off the mortgage or doing something for their children or grandchildren. Perhaps we could have an annuity that varies, which is higher at the start, dips and then goes up at the end when people need care fees.

I think that we are hoping that most people with a small or medium pension pot will not be faced with a blizzard of hugely complicated financial products, but that there will be options that they can match to their personal choice for their retirement. That is where high-level guidance is important.

People need to understand that there are different things out there for them to look at. I suggest that they do not just immediately accept the annuity offer that their pension provider makes. They should at least think about what would suit their lifestyle, what their existing financial position is and what they and their spouse want to do. That is where guidance is very important. It is very different from financial advice, which might be, “Take out this annuity with this provider, on these terms.” I suspect there is no way to get such specific guidance, and we should never want such specific guidance. That would be a horribly expensive programme, which would only be appropriate for a relatively small band of people.

Those who retire with huge pension pots should already be taking such advice and can afford to pay for it. Those with small and medium pots will not have that advice and, I suspect, in many cases will not need to spend thousands of pounds getting advice; it would not be a worthwhile use of their money. It is people in the band in the middle who perhaps could really benefit from expensive financial advice. How we get that guidance to work, and when people receive that guidance, is very important.

I think that we shall see a move away from retirement at one’s 66th birthday, or another fixed date. People may gradually step down to working four, then three days a week. They will have small amounts of income coming in from different sources. Lifestyles will vary, and they will start varying, perhaps, in people’s mid-50s. Some people will work full time right into their 70s. Possibly, they will not want advice at the age of 65 and a half or 66; they will need to think, “Do I want my pension fund to start de-risking my investments now, at age 55, or would I rather they did that for part of my pension fund, so that I know that I will get something when I am 66 but I will keep some higher-risk investments to get a higher yield for a few more years?” When we make that guidance available, and when people can choose to receive it, will be a key aspect; otherwise, people will end up in a default fund that does not suit what they plan to do with their own hard-saved income.

It is clear that the change is a very positive step in the right direction. If people are responsible enough to save for their retirement, I cannot see them frittering the money away on the proverbial Lamborghini when they hit 66. This flexibility will give people the chance to have the retirement that they want without being ripped off by the annuity market.

Some of us had wrestled with the question of how we could fix the broken annuity market. I had come up with the suggestion of splitting the pension fund industry and the annuity market, which did not meet with much approval in the industry. But what the Government have done is far more radical. An annuity may be the right thing for many, many people; but for many, it will not. Now there will be no compulsion or expectation for people to take out an annuity when they hit retirement age. That has to be the right answer, and I fully welcome the Bill.

Jobcentre Plus

Debate between Nigel Mills and Anne Begg

Thursday 10th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dame Anne Begg]

We have been consistent in requesting that the Department introduce a classification tool, so the Select Committee has certainly been convinced of the efficacy of such a tool, and 70% seems not too bad. I think the figure ranged between 50% and 70%, but that is better than nothing. At the moment, it can be a bit hit and miss whether someone is even identified as homeless. Their personal adviser has to recognise that the address they have given indicates that they may be homeless. As well, people with mental health problems will not necessarily reveal all in a short, cursory interview with a complete stranger, but that kind of information would be and is useful to anybody trying to get an individual into work or back into the workplace.

Our report recognised that JCP is good at what it is currently being asked to do: it has become adept at getting people off benefit in as short a time as possible. Since April 2011, JCP’s primary performance measure has been what is called “benefit off-flow”. The old mantra “What gets measured gets done” certainly comes to mind. About 75% of jobseeker’s allowance claimants come off benefit within six months, and some 90% are off benefit within a year. But—and this is a big “but”—is getting someone off benefit quickly always good enough? Is off benefit always a good and sustainable outcome?

Our answer to those questions was a clear no. The evidence suggests that measuring JCP performance primarily by benefit off-flow is unsophisticated. Jobcentre staff are likely to say to themselves, “Let’s concentrate our efforts on people who are most likely to come off benefits quickly—we need to meet our 13-week target—and let’s keep a very close eye on anyone coming up to 26, 39 or 52 weeks on benefit too.” Who can blame them for that? That is how their efficiency and effectiveness is measured, and that is the task that they have been set by Ministers, but JCP needs to be incentivised to take a more sophisticated approach.

Our second key recommendation was that JCP’s performance measures be amended to ensure that Jobcentre staff are more clearly incentivised to get people not just off benefit but into sustainable and long-term employment.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that that would also tie in with the way we assess the Work programme providers and make much more sense in the world of universal credit, assuming that it is fully rolled out? Under universal credit, people will not be coming off benefit. Their level of benefit will perhaps decline based on how much work they are doing, but their level of work could fluctuate from week to week or month to month, so the measurement would be largely meaningless.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Indeed; that was one of the things we pointed out in our report. We drew particular attention to it in our more recent report on the implementation of universal credit, which was debated in the Chamber on Monday—that is two reports in a week, showing that we are a really busy Committee. Although we might be sceptical of how far universal credit is being rolled out, there is no doubt that, as my friend the hon. Gentleman pointed out—he is my friend because he is on the Select Committee—its introduction provides an opportunity for the Government to think differently about how to measure the real success of Jobcentre Plus.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). Members of the Work and Pensions Committee have been debating different aspects of the Committee’s work in various rooms this week, and it is a pleasure to do so again.

Trying to think back six months to when the report was published was quite challenging, and it was interesting to see what has changed since. There have certainly been various improvements to various things. I was keen that the Committee held this inquiry because, with all the changes to the welfare system, actually trying to work out where best Jobcentre Plus fits and where it can contribute the most was not straightforward. At one extreme, one could say that if the Work programme is the way to go, why do we wait for people, with all their different skills, incentives and expertise, to spend a whole year unemployed before passing them on? Perhaps we should completely divorce the welfare enforcement and welfare support roles. We could use providers to do support and Jobcentre Plus could concentrate on enforcement. It was clear from the evidence received by the inquiry—I asked that question of nearly every witness—that there was no motivation for that at all. It would have been costly and would have undermined the great work that jobcentres do in all our constituencies by providing the right amount of support at the right stages for each individual claimant. The Committee completely rejected the idea of such a divorce and we can see that jobcentres have an important role to play in the future of tackling unemployment.

We are left with what the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Committee’s Chairman, referred to as the holy grail challenge. Everyone recognises that we need to provide the right kind of support at the right time. In an ideal world, that support would be more individual and focused for some and much more light touch for others. A lot of people who fall out of work might find more pretty quickly by their own endeavours, so they do not need much money spent on them. The holy grail is how to work out early in the process which people need more intensive support and which ones can be left pretty much to their own devices.

If we could find an assessment tool to do that, it would tackle the awful situation of people who have fallen out of a job but who will struggle to find another one, even though they might have had a long and successful work history—perhaps after they have been in the job for a while, their industry has left the area completely, or their skills have become completely out of date—because nothing they have been doing before is still there for them. It is a horrible situation of someone falling through the holes, because we do not realise how much support they need to reskill until they have been jobseeking hard for six months, and they will have become demoralised by failing, and so are getting further from the labour market as the weeks go by. There is a danger of that awful progress—the longer it takes someone to find a job, the harder it gets.

I agree entirely with having a tool to identify who needs intensive support right at the start, so that we can get them the retraining, the new skills or whatever early in the process, rather than leaving it for six months, until the Work programme or, heaven forbid, even until after the Work programme has failed them as well. That has to be the right answer; a key to enable the Department to focus its resources on those who need them, rather than risking simply helping those who might not need them.

In another situation, Government policy is to ask jobcentres to do a whole new area of work, in-work conditionality. If the journey of claimants with the jobcentre does not end when they find their job—once they have found a job, we want to help, support and encourage them, and perhaps even stronger than that, to increase their hours or their wage rate to get their level of benefit claim down even further—how we find the resources and mechanisms to support people on that continued journey will be a real demand on a jobcentre. It will require a different set of skills and approaches of jobcentre staff. Helping someone who does not have a job to find one in the first place, with job searches and so on, is different from helping them to increase their skills while in work or to look for extra hours or ways of getting more skills to get promoted.

How we resource and skill that policy is important if we are to make in-work conditionality work. Otherwise, I suspect, it can only be a phone call every few months to say, “What are you doing to find extra hours?”, “What are you doing to look for a better job somewhere else?”, or “Do you realise you can’t just stay where you are, doing exactly what you are doing?”, and I am not sure that that is a helpful process to get into. Exactly how we mesh that with universal credit and changes to how advisers approach such situations leaves us looking for a relatively fundamental change in work processes. Almost certainly, that means that the existing target—how many people can you get off benefits?—will no longer be a meaningful target.

If one of the advantages of universal credit is that people can be in work for a few weeks and drop out again, but their benefits will go back up automatically, or they find more work or perhaps their hours fluctuate, the target to get people off benefits will not apply, because they will not ever be off benefits under the new definition. Currently, people move off out-of-work benefits, on to tax credits and, heaven forbid, back again. Now, however, as a way of measuring what we are trying to achieve, we will need to find a more sophisticated target, one which looks at sustained employment or at how we follow people into and through their jobs. We heard evidence to say that that was a hard thing for jobcentres to do—finding out who people were employed by, phoning up the former claimants or their employer—when neither had any great need to engage. If people have found a job and stopped claiming, phoning the jobcentre a few weeks later is not on their agenda.

[Dame Anne Begg]

The hon. Gentleman suggests that people, once they have gone off benefit, are not interested in engaging at all. One of the excuses that the DWP gave us for not doing any measure other than the benefit calculation was that people did not want to be bothered, or that employers were not interested in letting the jobcentre know that the person was still in a job.

[Nigel Mills]

That is exactly the problem—how we motivate engagement on both sides, which we will need with universal credit and any in-work conditionality. We have to find a way of gathering reliable data. It is similar to a high-level instinct, or perhaps real-time information will provide something. Perhaps the RTI feed will show that the person is still in employment or even at the same employer—if we wanted to track the data that far back—but that looks to be a pretty clunky and limited way of checking things. Unless there are flags that show when employment has stopped, flagging it back to the jobcentre, we would not know that people had ceased to be in sustained employment, perhaps meeting the 12 or 26-week target, or whatever was set in that situation. I am not sure that there is an easy solution to anything, but for us to find a set of targets and work routes that work in such a situation will be important to how the jobcentre role develops.

The next area that I want to touch on is one that was topical last summer, when we started the inquiry: what happens to people when their two years on the Work programme finishes and they become the jobcentre’s responsibility again. This time last year, I remember speaking to the staff at my local jobcentre and they were not entirely sure what they were going to be doing with people in that situation when the first Work programme cohorts finished. Jobcentres have an important role to play, because we are talking about people who have not got a job in their first year of unemployment and who then got through the Work programme for two years and have not found sustained work. We could expect them to need some intensive support, but it is a little hard to see that jobcentres would be geared up for that, having not been doing it for people in that key two-year period previously. So what would we do with them?

Last week, I was pleased to meet a new subcontractor, Acorn, which is in Derbyshire dealing with what I think are now called community work placements, a new set of rolled-out private sector providers offering a different type of Work programme service that is not the Work programme and does something subtly different. I confess that the procurement of the service and how we chose the providers has passed me by, but in the east midlands, for example, we have G4S. Luckily for the east midlands in some ways, it is not one of the Work programme providers, because we have a completely separate, third firm in Derbyshire to do things. We have, however, found a sensible programme of community placements that are not meant to be free labour for unscrupulous private sector operators, but are meant to be getting people who have gone through three years of support finding something that at least gets them used to working normal working hours and some skills on their CV, making them more employable.

Housing Costs

Debate between Nigel Mills and Anne Begg

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

Not specifically, because a lot of that will have been covered elsewhere, although there is some confusion about people who might be sanctioned in one part of the benefits system whose housing benefit should not be affected but sometimes is. However, we did not consider that specific issue in this report.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I am sure that the Chair of the Committee would agree that the topic was not the easiest one for the Committee to reach agreement on, as the record shows. Does she agree that one issue is that the reforms are still in their early days and it is hard to find the data to work out whether they are being as successful as we would perhaps all like? Further efforts are needed from local authorities, local housing associations and others to ensure we are making the best and most efficient use of the housing stock we have.

[Dame Anne Begg]

That is why we say in more than one of our recommendations that the Government need to encourage local authorities to collect data on how their housing stock is being used. We call for an analysis across councils of the availability of houses for people affected by the policy to move into.

Pensions Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Anne Begg

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I agree wholeheartedly. I think we have all had people come to us with calculations saying, “What will I get under this new pension? What would I have got?” When trying to talk them through it, there is an especial problem with people who do not understand that those who have contracted out for most of their working life will not get the full £143. They think a bonus is coming—that they will be £35 a week better off—whereas they might just miss out. We need to write to people before the change, saying, “Here’s what you’ve accrued”, “Here’s what will happen after the change”, “It looks like you’ll get your full £143 a week”, “It look like you won’t get the full £143 a week”, “Here’s what you can do”, “Are you due any credits for periods spent caring for children or other things?”, “Have you missed any years’ contributions?” We have to communicate all that clearly so that people have the information in time to make those decisions.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a remarkable number of people do not know that they have been contracted out or qualify for credits through the home responsibilities protection and other things and that it will come as a surprise to them that they might have more credits than they had anticipated?

[Nigel Mills]

I absolutely agree. The system is so complicated that it is hard for any of us to know exactly what we are entitled to. It is scary when a constituent says to me, “You were on that Committee. Explain how this will work.” From my days as an accountant, I know how to write lots of caveats, so I e-mail them back saying “I think it might be this, but I’m not an adviser, I don’t know your actual circumstances,” and so on. Key to this reform being successful and retaining support, therefore, is how we tell people what they are entitled to, what they can do, what they need to do and when to do it by.

There are some useful things in the Bill, including the tweaks to auto-enrolment, which I think we all welcome. It is right to cap consultancy fees for auto-enrolled schemes, because if the state is, if not quite forcing people into a savings system, certainly encouraging them strongly to do so—through the opt-out—the auto-enrolled scheme must be a fair and decent one, and that means not being ripped off by excessive charges. We should be saying, “This is the most you can charge people. You cannot add unnecessary and expensive consultancy fees”. Therefore, the provisions in the Bill are a welcome change, even to a free-market, non-regulatory person such as me. It is the right direction to head in.

The provisions on the transfer of dormant pots are also a step in the right direction. When starting to think what retirement might bring, one wants to know how much pension income has been accrued, but that can be hard. If someone has changed jobs a few times, they will have lots of small pots, which means they will get those strange, complicated documents once a year that they do not understand. Even if they read them, they will not be able to work out the income it will equate to in retirement. If those pots were moved into a single pot, they would get only one statement. If we made that information clear, they might find out that they have accrued only a third of what they want and that they need to take action several years before retirement.

That is a welcome step. I asked the Secretary of State earlier whether we could use this Bill to make changes to the National Employment Savings Trust so that those who choose to use the scheme or their employers who use it can make those transfers. I am not quite sure what the situation will be for those who think they can transfer their pot but cannot, even though their employer might have chosen one of the best schemes out there. We need to get that clear in the system as soon as we can, so that people understand how that will happen. As the Bill proceeds in Committee and on Report, I hope those changes to NEST can be sneaked in, once the consultation ends. I suspect that some attempts to table amendments to that effect might be made in Committee, if the Government have not quite got there—not that I am saying I will draft them or am in any way qualified to achieve that, which I suspect is well outside my skills.

One issue leading on from auto-enrolment and NEST is the fact that the regulator responsible for auto-enrolment is the Pensions Regulator, yet most auto-enrolment is into contract-based defined contribution schemes, for which the Pensions Regulator has no responsibility. We are in a slightly strange situation. Everyone out there thinks, “There’s a Pensions Regulator,” yet most people’s pension schemes are probably not caught by it. They have no redress to that regulator and instead have to go to the Financial Services Authority, or the Financial Conduct Authority or whatever it is called now—the organisation that did such a good job with the banks that we entrusted it with pensions as well.

I am not entirely convinced that that is the right place, partly because when the FCA gave evidence to us, it did not seem to be giving pension schemes quite the focus that such an organisation ought to give them, as I suspect members of the Committee who were present would agree. There is real confusion out there about who does what in the pensions regulatory system. There is an attraction to having the role of supervising individual pension schemes all in one place—that place being the Pensions Regulator. I accept that the Minister recently replied to the Committee with some sensible reasons why he comes down on a different side of that line, but this issue is worth exploring, to ensure the right protections as more and more people move into contract-based defined contribution schemes, which is a hugely important sphere.

While we are on the Minister’s response to the Select Committee, may I welcome the fact that the start date for the change has made its way into the Bill? I questioned him quite strongly about that on the Committee, because this is a fundamental change to the pension that millions of people can expect, and to have the date slip by some accident or change of policy after the election would be hugely disadvantageous. If the date changes by even six months, that is six months’ worth for people who retired thinking they were getting £143, but who would then drop back into the old system. That would be disastrous, and all those women we have taken out would be dropped back in. I suspect that none of us would fancy that, so having the start date firmly in primary legislation in this Bill has to be right. I welcome the fact that the Minister listened, although I also hope that his power in the Bill to change the date by order is not one that he plans to use. I would have thought that the power should lapse—maybe in March 2015—so that it cannot be changed once we are a year from the start date. It would be awful if less than a year’s notice was given of a slip by six months or something like that.

We also welcome the fact that the Government listened and capped the minimum qualification period. We all accept that it is not right for our taxpayers to provide pensions to people who had a short stay here or to spouses who have never come here and who, by the time they retire, have had 40 years in a different state and have a pension there. It is not right to give them a small state pension that we have to administer. It is right to say, “If you haven’t paid in for this number of years, then you get nothing.” For that period to be more than 10 years would have been unfair—someone who has paid into a system for 10 years probably deserves something back out. It is right that the Bill has a cap at 10 years and we will see whether the Government choose seven years, 10 years or somewhere in between as the process continues.

I have had a gentle canter through what is in the Bill and some of the things I might have liked to see in it to improve things for people paying into private pensions. I am sure we can explore those as the Bill proceeds.

I am reluctantly content with the idea of increasing the state pension age—I suspect that future Governments might be grateful for this one. However, some kind of mechanism should be put in place to force a review every Parliament or every five or six years to see what the decision has to be. Increasing the state pension age by another year will never be politically popular, as a few hundred thousand people will then be retiring later than they wanted to. However, it would be right and fair to have a transparent mechanism—or transparent-ish: it would only force a review, not be a real power—so that we said to people, “As life expectancy increases, we have to accept that you retire later, and we have to try to keep a sensibly fixed proportion of your life that you can expect to be in receipt of a pension.” If people can understand that principle—“This is the proportion of your life for which you will receive a state pension”—or if it is at least there for them to try to understand, that will be powerfully clear. Rather than suddenly saying, “Actually, we’ve got a big financial problem again; let’s make a change that no one was expecting,” let us set that within some kind of trend.

I welcome the Bill and look forward to it passing through this House. There are some questions about the detail that I am sure we will all want to understand, such as how precisely the calculations will be made, how people will know when they have been contracted out and where people who have been contracted out for part of their working lives will fall between £108 and £143. That will be difficult to understand, but it is important that the Government make that clear. There is clearly a huge role to play outside this place in making people understand what pension they will receive and what they can do about it, which will probably be more important than the debates we have in this place or the agonising over commas and full stops that is to come. I welcome the Bill and look forward to the chance to serve on the Public Bill Committee.

Universal Credit

Debate between Nigel Mills and Anne Begg

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

We heard a lot of evidence from members of employers’ organisations and from organisations representing accountants, and others, who were concerned about HMRC’s real-time information requirements, on which the system strongly depends. They felt that there was not enough knowledge among employers who will have to operate the process. One of our recommendations was that the Government should be liaising more closely with those organisations and helping with publicity. Another recommendation was that the Government should be wary of trying to keep to the ambitious timetable that has been set.

The Committee has two other areas of concern. First, there are still decisions to be made about how to deal with passported benefits. Secondly, the decision to localise council tax benefit seems to fly completely in the face of the basic principles of universal credit. That might create extra computer problems, because the Department for Work and Pensions’ computer system would have to interface not only with the HMRC’s computer systems but those of local authorities.

Let me look at these matters in a bit more detail. “Digital by default” sounds great in theory, but it might be more difficult to manage in practice because the number of people likely to be applying for universal credit who do not have access to a computer or are not digitally aware or computer literate will be much higher than in the general population. We are keen that the Government should lay out exactly what will happen in the case of claimants who are unable to make any kind of digital claim, because we understand that there will not be a paper form. Indeed, the Government expect that only 50% of claimants will make their claim online in 2013, when universal credit starts to be rolled out.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her speech. Does she agree, though, that many people find the existing multiple claims processes very difficult to deal with and get right? Does she also agree that there are advantages to people using computers and becoming familiar with the internet because it will help them to get into work, where they may well be expected to do those things?

[Dame Anne Begg]

As we say in the report, it will not be a problem for the majority of people, but it will be for some. We must remember that the people who will get universal credit are not just run-of-the-mill out-of-work claimants; some will have very severe disabilities because employment and support allowance is part of the new system. Some people will have quite profound barriers to accessing benefits of any kind on the internet. We hope that they will have help, but it would be useful for the Government to spell out in more detail exactly how that help will be accessed.