My Lords, I associate myself totally with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, about universal credit and legacy benefits, but I want to say a bit more about the triple lock. I welcome the Government’s continued commitment to the triple lock and, without trying to pre-empt what will be in the Budget, it would be good to have an assurance that the triple lock will work again in the coming year. Can we have a firm commitment?
It is worth pointing out, as always when we talk about the triple lock, that it applies only to the basic state pension and the new state pension. It does not apply to the additional pensions, which some of us still think of as SERPS, it does not apply to deferred retirement additions and it does not apply to the graduated state pension. It would be interesting to have some idea of what proportion of the state pension actually gets the full triple lock and what proportion has had to make do with the very low figure of the CPI this year.
I have a further question about the TV licence. The Government’s approach on this has, of course, been shameful. However, I have heard some suggestion that what has happened to the TV licence has had the perverse effect, as some of us have said, of increasing government expenditure because it has encouraged a noticeable uptake of pension credit. Perhaps the Minister could indicate what net effect it is now having. I am very much in favour of anyone entitled to pension credit claiming it, but if the Government’s idea was to restrain expenditure, how successful have they been?
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