Clause 1
Pensions Bill
11:15 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. The successor of the minimum income guarantee, the pension credit, exists precisely to make up for that. However, she will know from her own constituency casework that there will be anger and frustration on the part of people who find that their basic state pension—what they believe is their entitlement and what they have worked for for all those years—is very much less than they believe it should be, especially people who have had almost identical working lives and retire within a short time of each other.
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State is committed to the statutory uprating of pension credit. He made that commitment on Second Reading, so the hon. Lady is right to say that other money will be made available. Notwithstanding that, there will be real anger and upset among our constituents about the difference in the basic state pension.