Clause 1 - ''Qualifying individual'' and ''relevant week''
Age-Related Payments Bill
9:45 am
Mr Malcolm Wicks (Minister for pensions, Department for Work and Pensions; Croydon North, Labour)
I promised the hon. Gentleman a letter on when I knew that the proposal would require primary legislation. I thought that I had sent it, but I now have a feeling that I did not, and if that is the case I apologise. We were clear before the Budget announcement, when these matters were being discussed with colleagues in the Treasury, that there might be a problem with how we could deliver the payment legally and that there might be a case for primary legislation, but we had to think through the legal options on that.
This is not an answer to the hon. Gentleman's question but, as he knows, our position on the relevant week follows that for the winter fuel payments. Essentially, it is about ensuring effective delivery. We promised to get the winter fuel payments out before Christmas with only a very few exceptions, and we promise the same with this. That means that we need to know who is eligible for the benefit some weeks in advance.
I used the phrase ''rough justice'' in the House recently, and I recognise that an element of rough justice is involved. If in the future it is possible to be more sensitive to individual circumstances, in principle it would be good to move in that direction, but I cannot promise that that will be easy to do, and there are always associated costs, often significant, to such moves. That is the rather boring but simple answer to the question of why we have to have a relevant week in September; it is about getting the money out.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.