Clause 7 - Fixing of claimant's retirement provision
State Pension Credit Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Professor Steve Webb (Northavon, Liberal Democrat)
Some of which are discretionary, as the hon. Gentleman says. If not, will that be a regulatory burden on the pension provider? In other words, will everyone who pays a pension to a recipient of pension credit have to tell the Department for Work and Pensions the uprating rules for each pension paid, which will differ?
Will the system be based on an individual-specific assumption about indexation—the ''deeming'' in subsection (4)—for each pension that each claimant receives, and who will provide that information? If so, that will involve an enormous administrative cost. If not, will people be deemed, using a broad-brush approach, to, for example, have added price indexation when many of them will not have done? Although over one year at 2.5 per cent. inflation that might not worry us too much, over five years at 4 per cent. inflation, for example, it could worry us considerably. Either a guess will be made that could be badly wrong and lead to people seriously missing out, or a specific and individualised calculation will have to be made for each pension and recipient, which will mean a huge administrative and regulatory burden. Either of those avenues would worry me. I hope that, when he responds, the Minister will make it clear exactly how the process of deeming will work.