Clause 6 - Duty to specify assessed income period
State Pension Credit Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Professor Steve Webb (Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
To a point, I am with the hon. Gentleman, and I accept that we are not talking about the 1930s. However, two important aspects of what is proposed here are substantially worse than anything any of us would want in our old age. First, there is the duty to report certain changes in circumstances to the authorities for fear of creating overpayments, debt and all the rest of it. The death of a spouse would be an obvious example, but there are others. There will be a set of people who have to tell the authorities about what is going on in their lives, and that will affect their income. Secondly, whereas we all want to know that we have a certain income in our old age, which we know will go up in a certain way, people subject to the pension credit will always substantially be at the whim of the Chancellor, whoever they are and whatever party they come from, and the way in which they set tables, thresholds and rates. That is quantitatively different from, and inferior to, what we would want in our old ages.