Access to Pension Credit

I beg to move,

That this House has considered access to pension credit.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I am grateful that this important issue has been selected for debate before the parliamentary recess, and pleased to see so many hon. Members present from many political parties to discuss this crucial issue. Their presence, along with the large number of colleagues who have voiced real concern about the problem in recent weeks, clearly illustrates that it is by no means constituency-specific; it affects people in every constituency in the UK and in all parts of the communities that we represent. My argument is a simple one, but the solutions to the problem are far from straightforward.

Pension credit is failing. It is failing the ballooning number of pensioners who are living in poverty across our communities, and the Government’s broken promise on free TV licences could be about to make things much, much worse. It is perhaps fitting that on the day the Prime Minister leaves office, we are here discussing just one of the numerous “burning injustices” that she failed to tackle—and that actually got worse on her watch. More of the same will not cut it. We must end this moral emergency.

The backdrop to our debate is simple but shocking. After nearly a decade of Tory austerity, almost 2 million pensioners are now living in poverty—a statistic that should not only shock us, but utterly shame us. In the now sixth-richest economy in the world, I am truly saddened and alarmed that the UK Government have allowed pensioner poverty to soar to such an extent. Indeed, I now believe that the situation is a moral emergency. To any Government Member who seeks to counter that claim, I simply ask: how can it be right that by this time tomorrow another 226 older people will have fallen into poverty? That is more than 80,000 pensioners per year—more than the number of people in most of our constituencies.

The frankly staggering rises that we are seeing will be difficult to reverse, but the Government’s continuing paralysis over Brexit must not mean that the issue is allowed to slip further down the new Prime Minister’s in-tray. If we do not address this moral emergency—if we allow this deeply damaging trend to continue—we have to ask ourselves what we got into politics for.

The issue does not affect just older people. The decisions that we take today to support older generations will have a real and marked impact on the future of young people across our country and on people of working age. If the Government continue to turn a blind eye to pensioner poverty, they will be sending one message, and one message only: “You can work hard all your life, pay into the system and try your best to get on and do well. But even if you do, there will still be a real risk that you will not be able to enjoy a dignified and comfortable retirement.”

No responsible Government should allow the situation to continue. One thing we could do to address it over the summer recess is take real steps, rather than just speaking warm words, towards making people properly aware of their pension credit entitlement. The Government’s appalling decision to break their 2017 manifesto commitment to protect pensioner benefits has, rightly, caused hon. Members across the country to shine a light on the low uptake of pension credit across the UK.

Under the new BBC licence fee rules, as hon. Members will be aware, only households with someone over the age of 75 who is in receipt of pension credit will be eligible to continue having their licence fee waived.

In Scotland, £300 million goes unclaimed in pension credits, including £7 million in my constituency. Surely that £7 million would help with those TV licence fees.

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. My point is that if all our constituents claimed the pension credit they are entitled to, it would cost more than providing free TV licences, so surely a good option would be to get better take-up of pension credit and to continue with free TV licences.

The new approach, when packaged in a Government press release, might at first look to some like a logical step to take, but when we unpack it and look at how many people are not accessing the financial support to which they are entitled, we see how utterly disgraceful the policy is and how much of a backward step it is. Put simply, the Government need to stop outsourcing their welfare policy to the BBC.

Of course, the Government provide a range of measures to protect the most hard-pressed pensioners, many of which are welcome and needed, yet their flagship policy to lift pensioners out of poverty—pension credit—is failing.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that the Government need to launch a major awareness-raising campaign about pension credit? There are more than 2,000 households in Blaenau Gwent that could be missing out on a total of £5.6 million every year. They have the right to this money, so let us make sure that they get it.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I completely agree with him that the Government need to do a lot more to encourage pensioners to claim pension credit and make them understand that there is no stigma in their gaining pension credit. However, even in my constituency of Ogmore there is more than £5.1 million that is not being claimed by pensioners, so I completely agree with him, and I hope that the Minister will respond to some of these points at the end of the debate.

Further to that point, does my hon. Friend agree that it is quite concerning that the figure nationally for those entitled to pension credit but not claiming it is 40%? Meanwhile, in my own constituency of Barnsley East, more than 4,000 pensioners are due to lose their free TV licences. The combination of these two factors is really concerning. Does he agree?

I do agree with my hon. Friend. Her intervention re-emphasises the point that this issue affects pensioners right across the United Kingdom, and the Government need to deal with it, starting by better advertising what is available and making sure that pensioners are able to access the money that they need and that is rightly theirs.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my shock and disbelief that pensioners tell me that when they phone up the helpline or claim-line for pension credit, they find that it is not properly staffed? Indeed, some of my constituents have been left on hold on the phone for up to an hour, even though there is no option to apply for pension credit using an application form. Barriers are being put in the way of pensioners claiming this money, which might explain the lack of take-up.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. As I will set out later in my speech, the parliamentary service here has been able to have some interaction with constituents from across the UK, and I have some examples that will almost confirm her view that the Department for Work and Pensions is being deliberately unhelpful when it comes to allowing pensioners to claim pension credit. I will refer to those examples later.

The Government’s flagship policy to lift pensioners out of poverty—pension credit—is failing, and it has been for some time. Pension credit is not working for up to 1.3 million pensioner households that are eligible for this vital support, which could be the catalyst they need to lift them out of poverty, but they do not receive it. In my constituency, I find it completely staggering that there is £5.1 million of pension credit going unclaimed each year, and I know that there are many, many constituencies across the UK where the situation is even bleaker.

By the time the new TV licence rules come into force in 2020, pensioners across the UK will have endured 10 long years of Tory austerity—10 long years of austerity that none of them caused; 10 long years of austerity that many of these pensioners did not vote for. Indeed, 10 long years of austerity have had a devastating impact on the living standards and quality of life of hundreds of thousands of pensioners across the United Kingdom.

In 2003, pension credit was introduced under the new Labour Government. It was created to ensure that all older people received a minimum amount of income and has played a major role in previous reductions in poverty. Indeed, the last Labour Government lifted 2 million pensioners out of poverty as a result of policies such as pension credit.

What have we seen since? Over 400,000 more pensioners have been plunged into poverty, and two in five of the pensioner households that are entitled to pension credit currently do not claim it. That shows that it is not that the policy itself is not working; instead, it is that people who might need this money are not accessing it. The Government have to change that.

My hon. Friend is making a great speech, with lots of very salient points. Recently, when it was announced that over-75s would get their TV licence free only if they are on pension credit, I wrote to all the over-75s in my constituency, so I will just add a response that I received to those that he has cited. One constituent said that he not only received his pension credit but now also gets

“council tax credit, help with…glasses and dental, and a premium on…carer’s allowance.”

He was forced into poverty because of a lack of information that only I, as his representative, could correct. Is that not something that the Government should do?

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The point that I will make later in my speech is that there seems to be this assumption that increasing publicity does not necessarily work or that trying to get cross-benefits, for example around housing benefit, would not solve the problem. However, his intervention shows that where Members of Parliament are proactive—arguably, the Government could be proactive instead—they can gain more support for their constituents. I pay tribute to him for doing that already; perhaps the Government could follow his lead.

Over the last few weeks, I have been working closely with the older people’s charity Independent Age, which has put forward some sensible recommendations that could help us to improve this situation. Indeed, its “Credit Where It’s Due” campaign has already made waves across the country, and I am proud to support it in its entirety.

Working with sector stakeholders and with all levels of Government, it is essential that the Government act to ensure that everyone who is entitled to pension credit receives it. To achieve this, I impress upon the Minister the need for him to make three clear commitments today. The first is to ensure that at least 75% of eligible people receive pension credit by the end of 2020. The second is to ensure that that figure is at least 95% by the end of 2022. The third is to ensure that it is 100% by 2025.

Independent Age estimates that if measures are put in place to achieve a 75% take-up target by 2020, half a million pensioners could be lifted out of poverty by putting an additional £1.25 billion into the pockets of our poorest pensioners. To reach those targets, the Government must put in place a comprehensive action plan that is ambitious about the full range of improvements that can be—indeed, need to be—made. Simply continuing previous approaches, such as focusing merely on new awareness-raising campaigns, will not allow us to make the progress on this issue that is desperately needed.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech with some excellent points. In Cardiff North, nearly 1,400 older people are missing out on a combined total of £4 million of pension credits. That has a huge impact on my constituency. I am reaching out to those older people. He has secured this important debate to reach out to the Government to do more, and his points are very salient. Does he agree that the Government need to be far more proactive in this area?

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She makes a strong case as to why the Government should do more, because, as I have already said, this issue is clearly affecting every constituency right across the UK.

Previous Government attempts to work with older people’s groups and charities to raise awareness of pension credit have made a positive difference in the short term, but they have not been enough to achieve the longer-term change that we need. For the record, I have no problem at all with the Government engaging with and working with the voluntary sector to support pensioners. There are many reasons why voluntary groups do extraordinary work in supporting pensioners’ groups and older people’s groups to tackle loneliness or offer support. I take nothing away from any of that work, but the Government need to take responsibility for the fact that there are millions of pensioners who are not receiving the pension credit that they should rightly receive.

The four stages of Independent Age’s action plan are a clear and decisive way to turn this around. First, the Government must take responsibility for getting pension credit to older people. Previous research has generally focused on the failure of older people to respond in the way that the system demands. Barriers to claiming pension credit can include confusion about the application process and the stigma associated with claiming benefits. Many people do not apply because they think they are ineligible. At times, there has been more ambitious thinking. In 2012, the Department for Work and Pensions ran a small trial in which pension credit was paid to people without them having to apply. However, that approach has not been fully explored or rolled out. The Government need to use the information and techniques they have at their fingertips to significantly simplify, or even remove altogether, the application process for pension credit.

Secondly, the Government should consider the trigger points affecting pensioners on low incomes and explore cross-referral across agencies. They should look beyond retirement age and explore the role of other services at those trigger points, such as the role of GPs, or ensuring that applicants for disability or carer benefits are notified about pension credit at the point of award. The DWP should explore its role in notifying such individuals about pension credit; for example, Tell Us Once is a service that lets a person report a death to most Government organisations in one go. That could be a route to notifying the bereaved about the support they may be entitled to.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on securing this afternoon’s debate, and thank him for the case that he has outlined.

As we have heard, pension credit is not working. Over £200 million of pension credit is not reaching older people in Wales each year, including almost £6 million that is not reaching people in my constituency. As many as 80,000 people in Wales, and over 1 million in total across the UK, are currently missing out. The financial support that pension credit provides would be a life-changing event to a great number of those people, who are finding it harder and harder to get by due to years of Tory austerity. That is certainly the case in constituencies such as mine in the south Wales valleys, where it can often be easy for geographic isolation to cause older people to suffer from loneliness and poor mental health. Pension credit can enable people suffering from loneliness or isolation to take part in a range of social activities they would not otherwise be able to, not to mention make shopping and other bills affordable.

I also want to mention free TV licences for the over-75s. Following the Government’s cruel decision to offload responsibility for that concession to the BBC, there is a policy to means-test pensioners’ eligibility for free TV licences through pension credit. That is not a suitable test, since the current take-up of that benefit is so low. Not only will about 3,220 pensioner households in my constituency and many thousands more across the UK continue to miss out on that essential benefit, but they will now be hit by a bill of over £150 for a TV licence.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore said, almost 2 million older people in the UK are living in poverty. It is shocking that more than two in five pensioner households are not receiving the pension credit to which they are entitled, an average of £49 per week. That money would make a huge difference to some of the poorest people in my constituency, across Wales and across the UK. Those pensioners have paid into the system their entire working life, but that very system is now letting them down.

I will speak briefly, because I know a lot of Members want to speak. I thank the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for having secured this important debate.

It is a disgrace that pension credit—the support in place to help our poorest pensioners—has been under-claimed by £7 billion since June 2017 across the UK. In my constituency, that figure stands at £7.4 million. While many pensioners often have to choose between eating and heating, they are unaware that other support has been set aside for them. I have raised this issue on the Floor of the House, and asked what the Government were going to do to publicise that support and ensure that our poorest older people were aware of it. Predictably and disappointingly, the answer I received was rather dismissive.

It seems to me that unacceptable obstacles have been placed in the path of those who might claim and benefit from this support. In my constituency, as I said earlier, I have been told by old people that when they call the pension credit claim line, it is not properly staffed. After being kept on hold, sometimes for up to a full hour, the would-be claimant gives up and hangs up. On hearing that, I advised my constituents to apply for pension credit via post, but guess what? Only those living in Northern Ireland can do so. I wonder why that is; perhaps the Minister can explain why there is more concern for constituents in Northern Ireland than for those in North Ayrshire and Arran.

Why does this matter? It seems to me that by not informing older people that pension credit exists, and then making it as hard as possible for them to claim, the less it costs and the more can be clawed back by the Treasury. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of pensioners in my constituency and across the UK are robbed of vital support that could make a material difference to their circumstances. That is before we talk about those who may miss out on pension credit and, as a further blow, will lose their right to a free TV licence when those are cut by the Government, not to mention the fact that pension credit is often a gateway benefit to other support.

The hon. Lady is not the first representative from her party to complain on behalf of the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign. However, there is devolution in Scotland. If she really cared about the issue, should the Scottish National party Government not put their money where their mouth is?