State Pension Reform

John Bercow Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend has raised a crucial question. There is some anger and some suspicion that somehow we are throwing money at future pensioners and ignoring today’s, but I can give a categorical assurance that that is not what we are doing. The budget for the new system is the same as the current budget. It is important to note that we are not simply taking the basic pension of £107, sticking 30-odd quid on it, and ignoring all today’s pensioners. We are combining the basic pension, the state second pension and the savings credit into a single flat payment. It is not comparing like with like just to compare the current basic pension with the £144 pension; it is a much more complex process.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I always listen intently to what the Minister says, but in a bid to make face-to-face contact with his hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), he is standing sideways. Facing the Chair is always to be preferred.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that pensions means-testing seriously undermined a culture of savings built up over many decades? Will he assure us that, following this reform, people will not be punished for making proper provision for their old age, as they were under the last Government?