Pensions Bill

The hon. Lady, whose contribution to the Committee was greatly valued, has more or less summarised the benefits that I would include. Council tax benefit, which she mentioned, has a lower take-up than any other means-tested benefit. We should recognise, as a matter of practical politics, that there will always be some means-testing in the system, because there will always be people who are sufficiently poor to need help from means-tested benefits. As I have said, the problem with mass means-testing of benefits such as pension credit is that many people who are entitled to those benefits do not claim them, for whatever reason. I am sure that in our constituencies we all do our best to encourage home visits by the Pension Service, and encourage people to make the telephone call that enables them to fill up the form. The good news, as the Minister will no doubt tell us, is that after some wobbling on the issue, the Government have confirmed that pension credit will continue to rise in line with earnings for the foreseeable future. We think that both Front Benches, in a spirit of consensus, should aspire to reduce means-testing in the medium term, which may mean committing funds to increasing the state pension even further than is envisaged in the reforms. Those, however, are aspirations rather than current spending commitments. Broadly speaking, the more means-tested benefits there are and the more people are likely to fall within their ambit, the less the take-up is likely to be and the more people who really need help are likely to receive it. My amendment No. 3 mirrors an amendment tabled in Committee. It suggests that before the Secretary of State issues guidance under clause 19, he should consult various groups—the delivery authority, obviously, but also bodies representing consumers, employees, employers and so on. What happened in Committee is what is always happening in Committee: a Minister says that the Government are going to take the action anyway and does not see why it should be specified in the Bill, and we say, ““If you are going to do it anyway, why not include it in the Bill?? I can tell the Minister now that I do not intend to go to the stake on the amendment today, but I think it was worth bringing it here from Committee. Amendment No. 7—unusually for a Liberal Democrat amendment—is quite sensible and modest. It would certainly be useful to have such information in the public domain. The amendment touches on the vexed question of ““ generic financial advice?. I am still unconvinced that ““generic advice? is not a classic oxymoron, but fortunately the Thoresen review is under way and no doubt it will find a way of squaring the circle. I do not know whether the amendment will be pressed to a vote, but if it is, we may well support it. I hope that what I have said, particularly about the two new clauses in my name, gives some flavour of what we are trying to achieve. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments in due course.