Guarantee Credit
State Pension Credit Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr Tim Boswell (Daventry, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman may wish to intensify that point. When we have sought to require information in parliamentary questions relating to the distribution of the benefit, except for the global figure of relief of £40 million annually, it has been remarkably difficult to work out how many people are affected and for how long, and to determine the caseload on which information is based.
Mr. Webb: I would certainly agree that there have been gaps in the detail. There has been a greater amount of detail concerning the numbers affected than the hon. Gentleman suggests, but the Department has hardly been overflowing with information about how such people are affected.
I presume that the Under-Secretary will respond. Will she provide empirical evidence of research committed by the Department to determine the costs incurred by people in hospital and the costs saved because they are not living in their own homes? Obviously, they are not buying food while in hospital, so a slightly lower rate may be justified to account for that. However, how important are such items of expenditure compared with costs that roll on when one is in hospital, such as household insurance premiums, which may rise during an extended period of absence—insurance companies sometimes increase premiums if nobody is sleeping in the house? Many costs roll on regardless, such as standing charges on utilities—telephone bills, for example—and car insurance does not stop when one is in hospital.
What is the relative magnitude of the costs involved? If one took all costs faced by a pensioner, what is the balance between costs that continue when one is a long-term hospital in-patient and those that stop? If, as I rather suspect, a large proportion of costs continue and only a small amount is saved, that should inform any hospital downrating.
My second question is what costs increase during a hospital in-patient stay? If a person is married, the partner will want to visit regularly, which will incur additional travel costs, such as car parking charges. Hospitals in my constituency, like others, charge rates of approximately £3 a visit. The cost of visiting once a day would be some £20 a week, which is a substantial sum relative to the figures that we have been discussing. Such additional costs may offset any savings.
Pragmatically and empirically, have the Government commissioned research on the problem and demonstrated evidence? Frankly, the number of people involved when the system was established post-war was probably only a handful. Most people died before any downrating would have applied, which is no longer the case. People are likely to live longer now and have long in-patient stays. Harking back to the fact that downrating is a feature of the post-war welfare state does not prove the case. It affected far fewer people in a very different world.
Hospital downrating also involves an issue of principle that relates to benefits other than those in the Bill, so I will not dwell on that point. However, one may question whether we should be going down this track with regard to contributory benefits. For people who receive benefits for care needs, although the hospital provides care for in-patients, a carer may have to be retained and wages paid for the duration of the hospital stay.