Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Davies Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to ensure pensioners who are eligible for but have not previously claimed pension credit receive a winter fuel payment in winter 2024-25.

[Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to help increase uptake of pension credit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Emma Reynolds)]

We have been running a national campaign since September across a range of channels, including print and broadcast media, to encourage pensioners to check their eligibility and make a claim, and we will continue to work with external partners, local authorities and devolved Governments to boost the take-up of pension credit.

[Emma Reynolds]

The winter fuel payment was once described as the

“largest benefit paid to pensioners…regardless of need, giving money to wealthier pensioners when working people on lower incomes do not get similar support.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the Tories’ 2017 manifesto.

[Paul Davies]

Claiming pension credit can provide pensioners with additional help for housing costs, council tax and heating bills. We all have a duty to boost pension credit uptake to ensure that low-income pensioners in all our constituencies receive the necessary support. I welcomed the Deputy Prime Minister and the Work and Pensions Secretary collaborating with local authorities and charities for the annual pension credit week of action, which took place during recess. What more can be done to ensure that low-income pensioners receive pension credit?

[Emma Reynolds]

We were pleased to see 160 local authorities respond positively to our call for action. They are working with us to drive the boost in uptake of pension credit. Apart from the national campaign that we have been running, we will bring together the administration of housing benefit and pension credit in a way that the former Government failed to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall]

That is not true. The Conservative Government did not even allow the Office for Budget Responsibility to do an analysis of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget and sat on 31 publications that, under their own rules, should have been published. We published an equality analysis. The right hon. Gentleman will know that that was never done for secondary legislation when he was in government, but this Government will be open and transparent, which is what we are already doing.

[Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

T5. Since the election, numerous constituents have contacted me to raise concerns about the Child Maintenance Service’s inefficiency in collecting arrears payments. Can the Minister outline the measures being taken to enhance the service’s effectiveness in this area?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

My hon. Friend is entirely right to raise this issue. He will be pleased to know that this Government are looking to utilise new powers to obtain a liability order without recourse to the courts, reducing the time taken to secure such an order from 22 weeks to around six.