State Pension Credit (Disclosure of Information) (Electricity Suppliers) Regulations 2010

My Lords, we on these Benches share the general support that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has given for these measures, as far as they go. Like him, I have a number of mainly factual questions. Some 3.25 million households are estimated to be in fuel poverty and 2.25 million of them, according to Age Concern, are older households. How many pension credit recipients just of the guaranteed credit covered by the regulations do the Government believe are over 70? What is the total pool of people among whom help could be distributed? How many people are excluded—people over 70 who would otherwise be eligible—by the exclusion of people on the savings credit? There is obviously a problem of limited resources, but it seems very hard to give no help at all to a pensioner over 70 who is perhaps receiving only a few pence or a few pounds of savings credit or is benefiting from it. Why does the scheme cover only electricity and not gas bills? The question is fairly obvious. How was the qualifying date of 26 March 2010 chosen and, given the considerable problems with take-up of pension credit and the delays in processing claims, will that lead to many pensioners who would otherwise be eligible missing out? Citizens Advice, which knows more about these matters than anyone, states: ""Problems in relation to Pension Credit are now a leading social policy issue … The most common problem continues to be the length of time it takes to process claims, and in some cases this is being exacerbated by the loss of papers relating to individual claims";" with delays of more than a year in some cases. That is obviously shocking, not only in relation to this particular additional help but also in relation to qualifying for desperately needed pension credit generally. Those are our main questions. However, even after the Minister’s generally full and helpful introduction and studying the background papers, which I found helpful, I am still not sure of what is the best estimate of the number of people who will benefit. My honourable friend in the Commons, Steve Webb, said that he estimated that only about one-tenth of pensioners on pension credit would be helped. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that. We thank the Minister for the time and trouble he has taken to explain the regulations, and we would welcome detailed answers to our questions.