Clause 4
Pensions Bill
6:00 pm
David Laws (Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Work & Pensions; Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman has given the clause a good airing and I do not intend to go back over the wider issues that he has raised. I do wish to make a couple of specific points. The hon. Gentleman is right that relatively little attention has been paid to the elements of clause 4 that he mentioned. Indeed, the Work and Pensions Committee did not cover the issue during the course of its inquiry, saying so specifically at paragraph 223 of its report, which simply picks up and quotes from its earlier report, “Incapacity Benefit and Pathways to Work”, where some concern about the impact of the changes on people with disabilities is expressed. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell me whether the potential concerns have been addressed in any other way, or whether there are any particular implications for vulnerable groups, such as for people with disabilities.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne said that he had had no representations on the clause. We can declare one. The group to be commended is the National Pensioners Convention, which raised a specific point about the proposal. I will quote the group in order to give it full credit:
“Most of the increases in payment in 2010 will have come to an end before 2020, as the dependants, of either sex, reach pension age and become entitled to a pension in their own right. The cost of continuing those still in payment would therefore be very small. If the increases are to be abolished, it should be done gradually, over a much longer period, so that the rights already accrued are preserved.”
We know that the existing clause 4 proposes to protect rights up until 5 April 2020, as the hon. Member for Eastbourne indicated. In addition to his wider points about costings and effects, it would be particularly helpful to know from the Minister who would still have some of the payments owed to them beyond 2020 and who would suffer the loss after the protected period ends. I should be grateful if the Minister would let us know how many people he expects to fall into that category and what the savings will be from bringing the guillotine down in 2020, rather than allowing the costs to taper away. Also, why have the Government chosen 2020? Was the issue one of costings, to correspond with a date when some of the costs of the other pensions reforms really click in? Was a judgment made that most of the accrued rights would have been paid off by 2020 and continuing the payments beyond then would be administratively complex? What were the reasons for choosing that particular date?