Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of automatically registering all eligible pensioners for pension credit.

It is a long-established policy of all governments, that provision of income-related benefits is contingent on a person making a valid claim. Like other means-tested benefits, Pension Credit eligibility and award amounts are determined by a person’s financial and personal circumstances and it is the responsibility of the person making a claim to provide the correct and accurate information required to establish entitlement.

Pension Credit is intended to target help at the poorest pensioner households. It would not therefore be practical to automatically register everyone of State Pension age for Pension Credit when the majority of them will simply not qualify. There may also be pensioners, who might qualify for Pension Credit, who do not wish to claim it.

In 2010 the Department ran an innovative pilot scheme to try to boost take-up of Pension Credit. The trial involved automatically paying Pension Credit to some 2,000 people who the Department had identified as possibly having entitlement to Pension Credit without them having to make an actual claim first. At the end of the trial the group were invited to go on and make a claim. The level of take-up was surprisingly low and disappointing, with less than 9% of those involved going on to take up their entitlement. It was therefore not considered a viable and cost effective mechanism to take forward. A copy of the evaluation of the pilot is available at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/214583/rrep796.pdf.