What estimate he has made of the number of pensioners over 75 years who have no known income other than the state pension.

Virtually all pensioners over the age of 75 have some income other than the basic state pension. Pension credit means that from 11 April, in a few days' time, no single pensioner need live on less then £109 a week. In 1997, that figure was just £69 a week. That is the difference between the Opposition and us. It will now be £167 for couples, with more for carers and disabled people. As at 31 December 2004, more than 2.6 million pensioner households were receiving pension credit, although updated that would be more like 2.7 million, including 5,000 in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

The Minister's answers to my question and to earlier questions mean that, according to my calculations, at least 500,000 pensioners over 75 would not receive any more than the basic income, and certainly would not be claiming the minimum guarantee. If that is the case, and some of the poorest people in Britain today are receiving significantly below the poverty line, why have the Government not accepted their argument and ours that we should pay a decent basic pension, and if people are rich because of other income, tax it?

Because we are not sure how the Liberal Democrat proposals would be funded. Apparently, it would be done by abolishing the Department of Trade and Industry. In addition, although their proposals to focus financial help particularly on the over-75s recognise that the older elderly are the poorest—a truth that we recognise with winter fuel payments and other help—they have taken a trend and exaggerated it into a whole social policy. Those over 75 have incomes of about 90 per cent. of those below 75, and the distribution within the younger elderly and the older elderly is wider than that. In other words, the Liberal Democrats would penalise many poorer pensioners who have the temerity not to have had their 75th birthday card yet.

Is not the benefit that is least well taken up by pensioners not pension credit but council tax benefit? Would it be possible to encourage take-up by requiring local authorities to send every pensioner in their area a form for council tax benefit and for pension credit? Surely that is a way of ensuring that elderly people on low incomes receive the entitlements that the Government have made available to them, which are their right.

I thank my hon. Friend. We all know the sensitivities around council tax, which is why we are reviewing that area of policy, but meanwhile, with the recent winter fuel payments, we sent out a leaflet to every pensioner about council tax benefit, and we have also supplied from our Pension Service to local councils the names of all those who are claiming pension credit but do not appear to be claiming council tax benefit. That is not enough and we need to do more, because my hon. Friend is absolutely right that, for obvious reasons, council tax benefit is becoming more important, and we must pursue a higher take-up rate. We are not complacent about this.