Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen Timms

Thursday 23rd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

That is a matter that the Minister may well want to comment on in his response to this debate. In my view, the triple lock is certainly not the wonderful device that the Government maintain it is. As I have said, it is leading to a lower uprating of the basic state pension in the year ahead than if the RPI mechanism was still being used.

[Oliver Heald]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need to exercise judgment about what the increase should be? One of the faults of the last Government was to be too rigid. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) has already mentioned the 75p increase, but there was also the freezing of the additional pension, which, again, was considered a mean act. Is it not right for the Government to take a judgment and—on pension credit, for example—to make increases well above the rate that they have to use, which is earnings, and instead use a higher measure, in order to be fair?

[Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman’s argument is a different one from the Minister’s. The Minister says that because of the triple lock, pensioners are safeguarded and need not worry about what future judgments Ministers will make. In a way, I am rather more with the hon. Gentleman on this than with the application of the formula. Again, however, I would point out that last year—the first year that this supposedly wonderful mechanism was in place—the Government overrode it. I am therefore not quite sure what certainty pensioners would have for the future about whether, in the event of siren voices being heard—we heard about those earlier—the triple lock might be overrode in the other direction, if someone judges that to be appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

As I have said, in the first year that the triple lock was due to be put in place, it was overridden, so I am not sure about the certainty to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

[Oliver Heald]

The right hon. Gentleman is being a bit naughty. It is a general provision in many pension schemes that there is a method of indexation, and it is often permissible to exceed it. To exceed the triple lock is not to break it; it is simply to be more generous. I do not think that “overridden” is the right word to use.

[Stephen Timms]

I deny being naughty. I am simply making the point that the Government have been telling pensioners that they are now in a wonderful new era, thanks to the triple lock, yet it had to be overridden in the first year it was supposed to be in place because it was not delivering an adequate increase. I am not persuaded that the degree of confidence that Conservative Members believe to have been bestowed on pensioners is a reality.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Oliver Heald and Stephen Timms

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s point, and to that extent the current system has a lot of attractions. The problem is that we will lose that system with universal credits. The question is: who will be entitled to free prescriptions? I do not imagine that she is arguing—as perhaps the Government will; I do not know—that there should be a cut-off point in income beyond which people suddenly lose all help for prescriptions. If that happens, we will create a serious and damaging cliff edge in the system, which everyone agrees is an undesirable feature. Our new clause 4 therefore proposes to address that problem, although there may be other problems as well. What I would dearly love to extract is a proposal from the Government, so that we can find out exactly what they intend to do, because so far they have been silent on that subject, as on all the others.

We have been told throughout these debates that the main point of the Bill is to ensure that people are always better off in work. Our task in Parliament is to scrutinise whether the Bill lives up to that laudable aim, but without knowing what the Government will do to provide help with child care, school meals or prescription costs, we simply cannot tell.

Frankly, it is an abuse of the parliamentary process not to tell this House what the Government’s policy is before the Bill leaves us. I do not accuse Ministers of withholding information from Parliament; the problem is that they have no more clue about their policy than we do. It is an astonishing and abject failure on their part. They made all these boasts at the beginning—their bragging ran away with them—but now they cannot deliver policies to substantiate those boasts.

[Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Is it not a bit rich to put the case in that way when under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, who were in power for many years, these aspects were not covered by a benefit? There was no child care benefit or a school meal benefit as such. They were dealt with outside the benefit system, no doubt in a way that he approves of, as I probably do as well, but why suddenly bring these elements into the benefit system?

[Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman has a good deal more experience in these matters, if I may say so, than some of his Front-Bench colleagues who are dealing with them at the moment. Good provision, particularly for child care support, was of course made through the tax credit system. That strong support for the costs of child care is why there was such a dramatic rise in lone parent employment under the previous Government. I supported that and I suspect from what the hon. Gentleman just hinted at that he supported it and continues to support it today. The problem is that once tax credits are abolished and universal credit takes their place, we have no idea how child care is going to be supported in the future. That is why I am—rather modestly, I think—appealing for the Government to tell us.