Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effect of the triple lock pension policy on the number of pensioners living in poverty in (a) Woking constituency, (b) the South East and (c) the UK.

While we can’t draw a direct link between the triple lock and pensioner poverty, pensioner poverty is at one of the lowest rates since records began, with 100,000 fewer pensioners in relative poverty (after housing costs) than there were in 2009/10. Pensioners are now less likely to be in relative and absolute low income after housing costs than the population as a whole. The Government continues to support the poorest pensioners, not least through Pension Credit which tops up income to a guaranteed minimum level of £155.60 for a single person and £237.55 for couples.

The Government wants all pensioners to have a decent and secure income in retirement. We have committed to maintain the triple lock to 2020, the guarantee that both the basic State Pension and the new State Pension will increase by the highest of the growth in average earnings, price increase or 2.5%. The full basic State Pension is now over £1,100 a year higher than it was at the start of the last Parliament. This is benefitting many of the 17,000 recipients of the State Pension in Woking, the 1.7 million recipients in the South East and the 13 million recipients in the UK.