Clause 5
Pensions Bill
4:45 pm
James Purnell (Minister of State (Pensions Reform), Department for Work and Pensions; Stalybridge and Hyde, Labour)
We have made it clear that we intend to use that index but, as I said, indices have changed in the past and might again. We would not want to have to come back to the House of Commons with primary legislation if that happened one year, so that we could uprate earnings in the future, or indeed that year.
Let me move on to the amendments that are intended to change existing conventions on rounding-up and the discretion not to increase benefits by a small amount. Amendment No. 2 would remove the do-nothing option for rises of just one penny or so. While I admit that that has never actually happened and would only ever happen in a static economy, we nonetheless want to keep in the law the flexibility that the Conservatives created in the Social Security Administration Act 1992. That is sensible. Even though the provision has never been used, we have no proposals to remove it. It is simply replicated inthe Bill.