Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2009

My Lords, it is for the convenience of the House that, traditionally, we debate the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order for 2009, or indeed for any year, with the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order. To take the second one first, as Ministers tend to do, I must admit to surprise. The reason for the uprating is clear enough. It sets out the amount by which contracted-out defined benefit schemes must increase members’ guaranteed pensions that accrue between 1988 and 1997, in order to make up the amount that was contracted out of the state scheme—in other words, broadly equivalent to SERPS. My confusion is that Ministers have always told us that, where inflation is more than 3 per cent, primary legislation says that 3 per cent is the amount of the uprating. Indeed, this order imposes that cap. However, in the legislative frenzy that the Government have unleashed on us in the past 11 years, no thought, not even the whisper of one, seems to have been given to whether the cap is valid any longer. I understand that, in a period of low inflation—which thanks to the golden legacy of the national accounts bequeathed to the Government by my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke, and to an extent continued by their policies, although not obviously recently—there has been little need to think about this. However, the relevant inflation figure under the 2007 order was 3.6 per cent. Last year, it was 3.9 per cent. This year, it is 5 per cent. All of us are delighted that it is falling again and we have reports that we may be having zero or even negative inflation next year. However, in the longer term, the prognosis is not anything like as rosy. It is an economic truism that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. I like to put that another way: it is caused by increasing the money supply when goods are not available to be bought. That is exactly what is about to happen. Billions have been given in support to banks and loans to businesses, as was announced last year; they are starting to be available but only with guarantees from businesses that were not made clear at the time of the announcement—I refer to money to support the car industry and the building of more social housing units. It seems that more and more money is being thrown around by this frenetic Government. So, in future, as I say, inflation is bound to rise. Indeed, it is only falling now due to external factors such as the price of oil. In these circumstances, is it not wise to at least look at the validity of the cap? The subject of inflation brings me to the general uprating order, whereby most national insurance benefits are increased by 5 per cent. These include basic state pension, carer’s allowance, attendance allowance, disability living allowance and industrial injuries benefits. Income-related benefits are increased, surprisingly, by even more, by the Rossi index, which the Explanatory Memorandum informs us is in use. Housing costs are typically met by specific provision within these benefits, whereas there is no specific provision within the benefits I have mentioned. Normally, the Rossi index is lower than inflation —I refer, for example, to the order of 2007 or 2008. The fact that it is higher now shows us that over the past year non-housing costs have increased substantially. I hope that I got that right; sometimes when I think about things I get them upside-down. Given the current state of the economy and the fact that the Government have announced a new social house-building initiative, will the expectation of the RPI and Rossi coming closer today live up to reality and help to keep the Rossi index down without increasing inflation? Housing costs bring me straight to pensioners, who may well not be helped by any state benefits at all, with the exception of the state pension. Following the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, yes, indeed, they may be eligible for that much-vaunted government scheme of pension credit. The Government state proudly that with pension credit no single pensioner need live on less than £130 a week, nor a pensioner couple on less than £194.45. is that invariably correct? Some of them, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, has just pointed out, will have small savings—perhaps many. Neither I nor the Minister knows. The problem for them is that the bank rate is so low that they are getting almost no gross return on their savings and, due to inflation, a negative real return. As I understand it, although I am not an expert like my noble friend Lady Noakes, the pension credit rules say that savings are deemed to have a 10 per cent return, so for every £100 saved pension credit is reduced by £10. If I am right, for pensioners with small savings, it is no longer true to say that no single pensioner should need to live on less than £130 a week. If my theory is correct, as I believe it is, what are the Government going to do about it? It cannot be the policy intention that pensioners should be in receipt of less than the maximum allowable under pension credit from all sources. It is noteworthy that the Prime Minister in the Times on 28 September 1993—this is going back quite a long time—said: "““I want the next Labour Government to achieve what in 50 years of the welfare state has never yet been achieved—the end of the means test for our elderly people””." What do we see today? Not only do we have the pension credit scheme, which tops up poor pensioners’ incomes, as I have mentioned, but it is means tested and pensioner poverty has risen by 300,000 more than in 1997. the much respected Institute of Fiscal Studies predicts that the proportion of over-65s below the poverty threshold will remain around one in five for at least the next decade. Currently, some 20 per cent of retirees live on less than 60 per cent of the average income. As we discussed on Tuesday, one benefit that the Government give to pensioners is the winter fuel payment. What we did not discuss is whether all pensioners have now received the full amount. Have they? That question also applies to the extra £60 announced in the PBR, to which the Minister referred in his introduction, which is to be given to the 15 million or so people who receive the £10 Christmas bonus and which has the effect of bringing forward the uprating of the state pension from January to April—in theory, anyway. What, too, about the working population, or rather the non-working population? Ministers like to wax lyrical over the 1 million new jobs created since 1997; what they are rather shy about is who fills those jobs and where they are. Despite the Prime Minister’s phrase, ““British jobs for British workers””, is it not true that two-thirds, some 660,000, have gone to foreign nationals? How many of those jobs have gone into the real economy rather than the public sector? How many, too, will remain? I heard over the weekend of a council intending to slim down its planning department; there are reports this week of reductions in the police force. I have yet to hear of planned redundancies in the National Health Service or, indeed, Whitehall. I did, of course, hear of such in job centres. Given the almost 2 million unemployed—soon, the general belief is, to reach 3 million—the redundancies have rightly been halted. Does the Minister expect more frontline staff to be needed to cope with the increasing number of claimants? What has been the total number of extra claimants of jobseeker’s allowance since we last debated this order—or, if the Minister prefers, in the last calendar year? I know, of course, that almost 5 million people are on out-of-work benefits of all sorts, and that youth unemployment is at its highest total since 1995. In spite of some activity in this area, these stark facts remain after 11 years. I cannot believe that the Government are proud of that. Indeed, one of my honourable friends called it a ““did nothing Government”” when referring to this area of policy. That might be a little harsh; they tried to do something but have not been terribly successful. As I have said, this figure is rising fast. What, then, is the light at the end of the tunnel that the Employment Minister talked of the other day? Where are the ““green shoots”” of the noble Baroness, Lady Vadera? I have in the past been critical of the drafting of this order, especially in regard to payment dates. I find this year’s order much clearer, though the thorny problem of Wednesdays recurs. For some arcane reason, Wednesday seems to be the day on which many payments for carer’s allowance are made. However, in Article 6, carer’s allowance is paid either on 8 April—in other words, on the first Monday of the financial year—or, where the Secretary of State so determines, on the first Wednesday, which, as Article 6 correctly states, falls on 8 April this year. Why have the department not streamlined payments so that they all start from the same day, as, indeed, happens with other benefits? I also note Article 14, which tells us that the rates of age addition to long-term incapacity benefit have actually gone down. I was rather surprised by what the Minister had to say on that. Perhaps he can give further explanation when he winds up. This and the traditional invalidity allowance are the only benefits where this appears to have happened. I have always understood that such rates are increased by half of the Rossi index. Indeed, I have never experienced a decrease before. As I said just now, it would be helpful if the Minister could explain this a little more fully because I, for one, did not take it in. All that said, no one can deny that the order represents a right and proper use of taxpayers’ money and we on this side of the House give it our blessing.