Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will introduce a right to statutory inflation increases for defined pension schemes that have pre-1997 accrued rights.

If a pensioner’s pre-1997 defined benefit pension rights include a Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) earned after April 1988, that element must be increased by inflation, capped at 3 per cent.

Defined benefit pensions accrued after 1997 are subject to statutory limited price indexation: inflation capped at 5 per cent for pensions accrued between April 1997 and April 2005 and inflation caped at 2.5 per cent for pensions accrued after April 2005.

We have no plans to change this.