Clause 21
9:30 am
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Employment and Welfare Reform; Minister for London), Department for Work and Pensions; Harrow East, Labour)
May I say—I forgot to do so earlier— what a glorious pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess? In my juvenile approach to these matters, I hurried along on the first amendment in the hope, which subsequently proved to be reasonable, that the hon. Member for Rochdale would not be here to move his amendment 63. I actually think he rather wishes that he had arrived a bit later.
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s welcome, but let us be clear. There is already a question on the pension credit form about whether the applicant is in receipt of carer’s allowance. There is no such thing in law as carer’s addition. The amendment’s effect would be that we could not in any circumstances automatically carry out the pension credit pilots that the hon. Gentleman welcomes. There is no such thing in the parent Act or other legislation as carer’s addition. I am sorry to be pedantic, but I can only work with the words that the hon. Gentleman used in his amendment. It is clear that he would not welcome exactly what the amendment would do.
I broadly accept what the hon. Gentleman says. Of course there are issues with take-up, but I do not agree entirely with his rather strangulated description of pension tax credit and take-up in the first instance. He seems to want to give the Royal Bank of Scotland chairman pension credit, regardless of the proper use of public funds. He seems to want every millionaire and everyone else who manages to reach the appropriate age to receive pension credit. That is not the best use of public resources. We are targeting the poorest pensioners, and that is entirely the right way to go.
There is no separate carer's addition. Pension credit provides an additional amount for older people who are also carers, but it is not separate from the pension credit entitlement; it is part of it. The amendment would not do what the hon. Gentleman wants it to, but would achieve the opposite, and we would not be able to get on with the automaticity pilots that he seeks and welcomes. I ask him in the nicest possible way to withdraw his amendment because it would not achieve what he wants.