Social Security

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I am trying to deal with a large number of points rather quickly. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West mentioned the uprating of guaranteed minimum pensions. GMPs ceased to accrue from April 1997, but past rights still exist. The Pensions Act 2007 allowed schemes to convert those rights to normal scheme rights, and the aim is to commence that legislation from, we hope, April 2009. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) raised several issues. He is right to say that the disability facilities grant has not been uprated since December 2005, when we implemented the proposal to exclude children's cases from means-testing. We are expecting to update the regulations shortly and we will also consider a packet of changes. The Government regard the DFG programme as an important means of helping more than 35,000 older and disabled people each year to continue to live independently. We have substantially increased funding for the programme from £57 million in 1997 to £146 million in 2008-09. Further steps will be announced shortly. My hon. Friend also spoke about the national insurance fund. Increasing the basic state pension to the level of the guarantee credit would cost about £20 billion a year. By 2015, that would rise to about £80 billion a year, which would wipe out the balance in the national insurance fund in a matter of years. My hon. Friend mentioned the capital disregard in relation to pension credit. He is right to say that there is an issue. We have focused on trying to help the poorest. We know that 80 per cent. of those eligible for pension credit have less than £6,000 in capital. I could deal at great length with equality for women, which is a complex issue. I am aware that there have been problems with recording home responsibilities protection in the past. Urgent work is under way to identify those affected. Where we find errors, we are correcting them. The Pension Service has been in contact with nearly 500,000 people, mostly women, regarding payment of contributions for the years 1996-97 to 2001-02. We are also contacting male pensioners who have had particular problems because of the lack of HRP recording in the past. We are trying to make sure that we get the issue right. My hon. Friend also mentioned the cliff edge; I will soon have to deal with that during discussion of the Pensions Bill. That will be a better time to deal with the detailed arguments on what I accept is an important issue. Since 1997, pensioner poverty has reduced by more than a third to 17 per cent., through targeted support such as pension credit and about £11 billion of extra funding. We have lifted more than 1 million pensioners out of relative poverty after housing costs. Due to the tax and benefit changes that we have introduced, pensioner households are on average £1,500 a year or £29 a week better off in 2007-08 than they would have been under the 1997 system. The poorest pensioner households are about £2,000 a year or £42 a week better off. I turn to the working-age issues, a significant number of which have been raised. Our aspiration is for a fair and inclusive society that offers greater opportunity and independence for people. The uprating orders move us further towards that. They help tackle poverty and exclusion and ensure security in retirement. In the past 10 years, we have made great strides in dealing with poverty and creating greater opportunity. For the first time in this country, we can look forward with greater confidence to full employment, eradicating child poverty and delivering justice to pensioners. Work is the best route out of poverty and today more people are in work than ever before: 29.4 million people, according to the latest figures—up 175,000 in the past three months. We have the second highest employment rate in the G7. Since 1997, employment has gone up by nearly 3 million; under the Conservative Government it was down by 3 million. Under Labour, employment has gone up in every region and country of the UK. It has gone up in the neighbourhoods and cities neglected by the Conservative party. It has gone up for disadvantaged groups: 300,000 more lone parents, 900,000 more disabled people, 1 million more from ethnic minorities and 1.5 million more older workers are in work. The number of job vacancies remains at 670,000. I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) about migration. However, I say to him that although migrants have come to this country to work, there are still 670,000 vacancies, and those are jobs for workers in this country to apply for. There are people on incapacity benefit whom we want to go into those jobs. There is still a demand for employment in this country and we still have a strong economy. The hon. Gentleman's points about some of our media, who tend to make unfair comments, are not acceptable. Several times, Conservative Members spoke of dealing with child poverty. A target is not a quota but a direction of travel and a measurement of whether we get there on schedule. That may be subject to events and circumstances, which may interfere, but a target tells people where we want to be. Let me be clear that we are sticking to our direction of travel. People know what our ideals, targets, direction and aims are. Do the Tories have any aims, ideals, targets or direction on poverty? We know what their direction was from their record. Under the Conservatives, child poverty doubled and we had the highest child poverty rate in the industrial world. More than one in four children lived in poverty and the value of child benefit was cut in real terms. That was not the 1930s, but the Tory early-1990s and they have still not learned. They will not pledge to eradicate child poverty; for them, that is merely some vague aspiration. Their policies would push millions back into poverty. We want to see those policies stopped and to see instead the creation of a fairer society. These orders are part of the process of creating that fairer society—helping pensioners, helping those who need work to find work, and helping those who need benefits to get them. They take us a step closer to providing opportunity to all, and I commend them to the House. It being Six o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker proceeded forthwith to put the Question, pursuant to Order [6 February]. Question agreed to. Resolved,"That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved." Mr. Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put the Question required to be put at that hour.