Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman but I must repeat that I cannot comment where there is an ongoing investigation.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

10. What recent estimate he has made of the number of pension credit claimants.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Laura Trott)]

As of the latest public data of February 2022 there were 1.38 million pension credit claimants.

[Rob Roberts]

I welcome the new Minister to her place and hope she can continue the excellent work done by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) in this area. Despite all that excellent work, however, take-up is still relatively low, and my constituency has 20% more over-65s than the UK average. Will the new Minister meet me to discuss how we might be able to make pension credit at least in part an automatic benefit so that struggling pensioners can get the money they are rightly entitled to?

[Laura Trott]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point but it is difficult to enrol people automatically on pension credit given the data the Government hold. I am, however, keen to see how increased data sharing could be used to produce a larger number of claims.