To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether the Government Actuary's estimate that personal pensions schemes would cost the national insurance fund £2·018 billion in 1990–91 has been updated; what is his most recent estimate of the cost; and what the cost is expected to be in 1991–92.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the most recent estimate of the cost of personal pensions schemes to the national insurance fund in 1990–91; and what is the cost expected to be in 1991–92.

The Government Actuary's latest estimate of the cost to the national insurance fund in 1990–91 of personal pensions is £1,910 million, assuming that 3·9 million personal pensions are in force by the end of 1989–90. If the assumed number in force remains unchanged to the end of 1990–91, then the estimated cost in 1991–92 is £2,090 million.

This is another con trick by the Government. The Secretary of State did not admit, but I hope that he will, that the Government will run the insurance fund into a deficit of £500 million. That will be their answer. Who will suffer? In the main, it will be pensioners. That is how the Government treat pensioners. They should be ashamed of themselves. They are filling the pockets of the rich by pouring money into private pension funds so that somebody can get a nice rake-off at the expense of pensioners. It is a shocking state of affairs.

The hon. Gentleman made his points with his characteristic charm, but he appears not to have looked at the figures on the national insurance fund, which currently is running a surplus twice as high as the level recommended by the Government Actuary. It is expected to be higher in the forthcoming year, partly as a result of steps that I have already taken to deal with a problem that might otherwise have arisen. The earlier statistics show that about 90 per cent. of people with personal pensions earn less than £13,000 and that more than 40 per cent. earn less than £6,000 a year. If the hon. Gentleman regards those people as rich, he is living in a dream world.

I cannot ask my question in the manner of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes), but if, as the Secretary of State suggested, the fund is in surplus, why is it not being used to pay pensioners a decent pension in line with European pensions? Is not the net effect, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield said, that pensioners are paying for the profits being made by insurance companies?

Let us be clear, because there is considerable misunderstanding, that the overwhelming bulk of the cost is not the so-called incentive but the rebates for contracting out introduced by the Labour Government in the mid-1970s. The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has not suggested the ending of contracting out. A major reason for the expected drop in the balance of the fund is the substantial reduction in national insurance contributions which the Government made last October to help many lower-paid people.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that pensioners want financial security and stability in retirement? Do not employees have many choices—remaining in SERPS, taking out a personal pension or belonging to an occupational pension scheme? Why are Opposition Members so negative on this matter?

I must leave Opposition Members to explain that. Personal pensions have been an astonishing success, which reflects people's welcome of the greater choice that they now have. The Opposition's attitude is yet another illustration of their persistent unwillingness to let people decide things for themselves.

On what possible grounds can even this Government spend £2 billion on a bribe for people to invest in a highly speculative and risky pension scheme when they freeze child benefit for three years, deny pensioners a share in rising national incomes by breaking the link with earnings and will not even financially protect pensioners from eviction from residential and nursing homes? When will the Government ever learn that the people totally repudiate that order of values?

As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is absolute nonsense to suggest that, in general, pensioners have not been sharing in the country's rising prosperity. I have always accepted that there are less well-off pensioners, whom we have been trying to help in other ways. Since the Conservative party took office, pensioners' incomes have, on average, been rising faster than those of the rest of the population, partly because of the growth of occupational and now personal pensions, adding to the security of provision for retirement. If the hon. Gentleman's remarks about rebates, which embrace the existing contracting-out—

No.

The hon. Gentleman described as a bribe a sum, two thirds of which consists of the rebates introduced by the Labour Government in the mid-1970s. I take the hon. Gentleman's remarks as a clear threat to the continuation of those arrangements.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on his proposals to help people who are partially incapable of work.

We will be introducing, from April 1992, a wholly new benefit for this group, to be called the disability employment credit. For the first time, there will then be a benefit aimed specifically at helping disabled people to support themselves in work.

My right hon. Friend announces an important measure which will give a good deal of self-respect to disabled people who wish to work. They will not now be penalised for doing so. Is he involved in consultations with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment to ensure that sufficient companies provide places of work and proper facilities for disabled people so that his Department's scheme can be fully taken up?

The Department of Employment already spends about £350 million a year to obtain work for disabled people and keep them in employment. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will shortly bring forward new proposals, to which the whole House will look forward, to provide services for disabled people.

Will the Minister confirm that he expects to save £10 million on the new benefit, as I was told in a recent parliamentary reply, and that this must be a policy decision, as transparently it cannot have been based on detailed costings? Why is this such a big new deal for disabled people when the Government expect to save £10 million and will the right hon. Gentleman introduce a consultative document on this new benefit?

The Government obviously have a duty to produce the best estimate they can and to put it before the House. There is great uncertainty about the final expenditure on this benefit because we do not know what the take-up will be. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not criticise the principle that disabled people who are in work but who perhaps are unable to work to full capacity should be supported by the benefit system.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a further statement on income support entitlement in respect of elderly people living in private residential homes.

As I announced to the House on 28 March, I propose to make further substantial increases at a cost of £45 million from 13 August to the income support limits that apply to people in residential care and nursing homes. These are in addition to the increases in the limits which will take effect on 9 April and which are the largest increases since 1985, amounting to £100 million a year.

Notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman's concessions last week, does he accept that many thousands of sick and elderly people face a considerable shortfall on their residential costs in nursing and residential homes? The survey carried out by the National Federation of Housing Associations showed that one in five faced a shortfall of £60 a week or more. Is not it time that the Secretary of State acted to help those people, to stop them facing eviction and to end the needless worry to which his policies have subjected them?

I have taken action that I think will contribute to the hon. Gentleman's objective. I repeat the point that I made towards the end of our debate on the subject last week. Many of the bodies to which the hon. Gentleman referred—the National Federation of Housing Associations and any other voluntary and charitable bodies—have made it clear to me that, although they believe that there should be an increase in the limits, they do not expect the Government necessarily to make up the full difference between the charges that the homes levy and the current income support limits, because it is part of their policy to provide a higher standard of amenity than they think it reasonable to expect the taxpayer to pay for.

My right hon. Friend's announcement last Wednesday was warmly received by those who run private residential homes and by the people who live in them. He will know that many wish to move to the new regime outlined last Wednesday as soon as practicable. Will my right hon. Friend say whether, if good progress is made in the current year in negotiating contracts between local authorities and private homes, income support can be raised in 1991–92 to the new levels envisaged in his statement?

I repeat what I said to my hon. Friend clearly last week: to the extent that we have good information about what local authorities are contracting to pay in advance of the next uprating due in April 1991, I shall, of course, ensure that that is taken into account in setting the limits for next year.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the £5 extra for elderly people in residential homes which he announced last week is little more than a gesture—merely the contribution to which he referred—given that the National Federation of Housing Associations survey found that in more than half of the homes the shortfall is now over £30 a week? If Conservative Back-Bench Members are satisfied with that, does not it show that they are far more concerned with propping up a Government on the ropes than with protecting 176,000 elderly and frail patients from eviction?

First, the hon. Gentleman neglected to acknowledge that the £15 extra is on top of the £10 increase that is about to take place, making £15 extra in all on the current limit of £140. That is an increase of significantly more than 10 per cent. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman failed to acknowledge that the major pressure is undoubtedly on nursing homes, in respect of which I announced a further increase of £10, making £20 in all.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what are the latest available figures on the proportion of pensioners whose incomes fall in the lowest fifth of national income distribution.

The latest available figures show that in 1987 only 24 per cent. of pensioners had incomes in the lowest fifth of national income distribution, whereas in 1979, 38 per cent. of pensioners fell into the lowest fifth.

I thank my hon. Friend for those figures, which are the result of a policy consistently balanced between state provision and savings and between personal and superannuated pensions. Does she share my view about the remaining 24 per cent.—many of them in agricultural constituencies such as hers—who may have had no opportunity to take out superannuated pensions or make personal provision and who remain in a relatively difficult position? Will she undertake to keep her eye on the programme that we started for the over-75s which recognised their position?

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the balanced nature of the Government's policies towards pensioners. He is also right to draw attention to the increase in pensioners' incomes from savings and occupational pensions. He mentioned the October package for older pensioners which we introduced to give them additional help through extra premiums. I remind him of the arrangements for disabled pensioners and for those over 75 and over 80. Finally, I remind him that between 1979 and 1989 expenditure on benefits for the elderly increased by 22 per cent. in real terms.

Is the Minister aware that the best way for the Government to help the 24 per cent. of people who are right at the bottom would be to take away the £26·2 billion that went to the 1 per cent. who are the wealthiest in the population in tax cuts over the past 10 years and hand that to the 24 per cent? At the same time, the Government should hand back the £12 a week that the 24 per cent. lost as a result of the Prime Minister and her Ministers cutting the link between earnings and prices for pensioners.

The Government have honoured their manifesto pledge to keep pensions in line with the rise in prices. I repeat that the most important point is the rise in pensioners' total incomes. I remind the hon. Gentleman that between 1979 and 1987 pensioners in the lowest quintile experienced a 19 per cent. increase in real terms in their average total net incomes.

While my hon. Friend is on the subject of income from savings, will she raise with the Treasury the treatment of interest under the £16,000 savings rule, the majority of which, as I understand it, is treated as having a 20 per cent. return? If that cannot be changed, will my hon. Friend ask the Treasury where one can find investment yielding 20 per cent. net, because I would like to know myself?

My hon. Friend draws attention to the greatly welcomed increase in capital limits announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his budget. I remind my hon. Friend that 150,000 pensioners stand to gain as a result of the change in the rules on the capital limits. That was no mean achievement for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the capacity of the social fund to respond to the claims of all the people in need (a) in the United Kingdom and (b) in Scotland.

Since April 1988, the social fund has concentrated help on those most in need in Great Britain, principally recipients of income support, through the payment of 2·2 million loans and grants at a gross cost of £347 million. The corresponding figures for Scotland are 212,000 at a gross cost of over £34 million. Last week I announced an increased budget of £215 million for the fund in 1990–91.

Does the Minister agree that this is a disgraceful piece of legislation and that the social fund will take over from the loan sharks? Some of my constituents are a giro away from starvation and the social fund offers no help because of its cash limits. Does the Minister agree that it is time that we returned to single payments to deal with the problems of the poor?

As I recall, the single payments scheme did not have many friends on the Opposition Benches. It was subject to a great deal of criticism. Moving away from a scheme that depended entirely on whether claimants fitted the terms of particular regulations to one in which social fund officers can use their discretion within the limits of the budget is a great step in the right direction.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that under the old single payments scheme many rackets were run by second-hand shops? Aided and abetted by some social workers, people handed in shopping lists for 130-odd items on demand. That could not be right; it was a licence to print money. Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the new system—the social fund—has the merit of circulating the same amount of money, and more money as it is added to, and benefits many more people because the money must be repaid and people must think twice about the items for which they ask?

In was the latter point which enabled me to increase the gross budget to £215 million for the year that has just started. I agree with my hon. Friend that there was widespread abuse under the single payments scheme. The size of the budget was doubling every two years and we were right to get rid of it and move to the social fund.

Does not the Minister realise that the social fund has created a poverty cul-de-sac? Many people will not make the initial approach to inquire about support because they know that it will be in the form of a loan and that it will be debited from their other already meagre state benefits. What analysis has the Minister's Department carried out in Scotland and in the United Kingdom of the number of people who, after their initial approach when the changes were introduced, no longer even bother going to their local DSS offices to find out whether support is available because they know that they cannot afford to pay it back?

As for analysis and research, apart from monitoring the position in our local offices, as the hon. Gentleman knows we have commissioned research by the social policy research unit at York university, and we look forward to its analysis of the position and in particular its judgment whether the social fund is meeting the needs that it was designed to meet. I should think that we shall get the report early next year.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what has been the average increase in incomes since 1979 for those pensioners who receive all of their income from state benefits.

The latest available figures show that between 1979 and 1987 pensioners who received all their income from state benefits had experienced a real terms increase of over 27 per cent. At the same time the proportion of pensioners in this position fell from 22·5 per cent. in 1979 to 15·9 per cent. in 1987.

I thank my hon. Friend for that encouraging reply. Given that the Conservatives will be in charge of this country for the next decade as well, will she assure hon. Members that the group of people who were long-term unemployed at the end of the 1970s will receive the same consideration as old-age pensioners who depend on state benefits at the moment?

I assure my hon. Friend that the Government will continue to apply successful social security policies which in turn depend on a successful economy. When they are re-elected, the Government will do just that.

Are not the figures that the Minister presented rather misleading when one considers that VAT, gas bills, and electricity bills have nearly doubled and that people will have to pay a minimum of 20 per cent. of the poll tax?

No, Sir. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the figures that I have given represent a real terms increase.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the latest estimate of the number of people who have taken out appropriate personal pensions.

Just over 3·6 million people have so far taken out appropriate personal pensions.

I warmly welcome what my right hon. Friend says and accept that pensioners on the state pension had an increase of 27 per cent. in real terms between 1979 and 1987. But does my right hon. Friend aggreciate that not everyone regards the state pesion as a top-up and that, despite the Government's generosity and his Department's commitment, many people find it difficult to make ends meet? Will my right hon. Friend try in the next few months to bring forward some imaginative proposals to help people who are in serious difficulties?

I should make it clear to my hon. Friend that we regard the state basic retirement pension—the national insurance pension—not as a top-up but as the foundation of provision for retirement. That is why we have protected its value. The important point is that personal pensions and occupational pensions are a growing part of people's income in retirement, and we welcome that. We also acknowledge that not everybody has such pensions or savings. It is to that group that we directed an additional £200 million last October. I note my hon. Friend's proper ambition to see the process go further.

Does the Secretary of State share the anxiety of the regulatory body, the Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation, which has described the advertising of personal pensions as wildly inaccurate? Does he agree with the independent pension investment research consultant who estimated that at least 1 million people will end up with totally indequate pensions because they have opted to leave SERPS? As that deception of 1 million people has been the result of Government legislation, when will the Secretary of State announce his plan to inform those people that their only chance of a decent pension is to return to SERPS?

Obviously, I do not accept the basic thrust of the analysis implied in the hon. Gentleman's question. It was Government legislation, the Financial Services Act 1986, that set up LAUTRO—that is the Life Assurance and Unit Trust Regulatory Organisation—precisely to ensure that advertising of financial services of all types was proper and not misleading. That very fact shows our concern to ensure that people are properly advised.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the current value of child benefit it it had been uprated in line with inflation over the past three years.

The value would be £8·60 a week from later this month.

Is not that figure an indictment of the Government's policy and of the amount of which parents and children have been robbed? When will the Minister's Department stand up for child benefit? In the past, the Secretary of State was known to be an open supporter of such a benefit, so why are not he and his colleagues fighting to ensure that there is an uprating every year and that mothers and children receive the benefits to which they are entitled?

Child benefit remains important help for many families—in fact, for 6·7 million families. I tend to share the view of Mrs. Castle, when she was Secretary of State and introduced the benefit, that indexation of child benefit would be inappropriate and that Parliament would wish to exercise its judgment about the balance of family support, year by year.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the existence of virtually any rate of inflation is a precise and inescapable index of the fact that the community as a whole has overfunded its requirements in relation to resources by precisely that amount? To the extent that a beneficiaries—or any one else in society—have their income guaranteed by uprating, is not that a guarantee that inflation will continue? If not, does my right hon. Friend agree that that creates the massive problem of who will bear the burden of reducing inflation?

My hon. Friend has added yet another reason why it is inappropriate to index this benefit, as has been suggested by the Opposition. For other reasons, we need to assess our priorities on family support each year when the time comes.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received about his proposals requiring a pension scheme to fund increases on wind-up.

We have received a number of representations, some suggesting possible repercussions for certain businesses and some suggesting that a requirement for pension increases should apply generally. In the light of the representations, I announced that pension schemes will be required to pay annual increases on pensions resulting from future service. On pensions based on past service, in addition, where schemes have a surplus, they will have to guarantee increases to members.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that those proposals represent a major step forward in the protection of millions of people who hold occupational pensions? Does he further acknowledge that the greatest protection for holders of pensions is a strong economy and low inflation? Can he give the House any details about pensioners' incomes from occupational pensions since 1979?

My answer to the first two parts of my hon. Friend's question is yes. The average income received by a pensioner with an occupational pension was nearly £45 a week in 1987, which represents a 77 per cent. increase over the amount received in 1979.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of (a) all pensioners and (b) recently retired pensioners are receiving income from savings.

The latest available figures show that in 1987, 73 per cent. of all pensioners and 82 per cent. of recently retired pensioners received income from savings.

Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures are encouraging, and is she aware that in 1987 only 24 per cent. of pensioners were in the bottom fifth of national income distribution, whereas in 1979 the figure was 38 per cent? Does she agree that that, too, is encouraging and does she further agree that the Budget will further encourage savings?

My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to the encouragement to save given in the Budget of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, particularly the measure known as TESSAs, or tax-exempt special savings accounts, which will further increase the value of pensioners' savings. The abolition of the composite rate of tax will also particularly help pensioners.

Will the Minister clear up the points raised earlier by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin)? Why are pensioners' savings over £3,000 deemed by her Department and other Departments to give them a return of 20·8 per cent. per annum, when nowhere can that percentage return be found with safety? Should pensioners look for another Barlow Clowes in order to achieve it? Can the Minister give us a list, which we should be happy to pass on to our pensioners, of where they can find that return on their savings?

The point about the £1 per week in income that is assumed for each £250 of capital over £3,000 is that it helps to take into account the resources of a claimant in order to target help on those most in need. It is true that some claimants will be taken out of entitlement to benefit because their total income, including tariff income—which is not actual income from savings —is sufficiently high to disqualify them. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is not a matter of taking out pound For pound. The assumption is that there is an income of £1 per £250, but the amount that is taken from the allowance paid in benefit is 15p in each pound, which is a generous taper —much more generous than under the previous arrangement.

Does my hon. Friend accept that as it is proper to encourage saving now for the future, we should not penalise those who saved in the past, and there should be a closer relationship between deemed income and real income? Would she kindly have a word with her right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has shown himself to be devoted to savers and savings?

I am sure that my hon. Friend is capable himself of having a word with our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He should realise that as a result of the measures, among people with £10,000 of savings, there will be about 70,000 gainers in community charge benefit and about 25,000 gainers in housing benefit. In both cases, it is about half the total number of gainers. That is not a discouragement to savers.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimation has been made by his Department of the effect of the budget on pensioners' households.

I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome the changes announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget last month—many of which will benefit pensioners, and some of which I have already mentioned.

Welcome as the raising of the ceiling on savings undoubtedly is—the Opposition have pressed for it for a long time—what justification can there possibly be for pensioners whose total income is £61·81 a week to pay £18 a week in rent, due entirely to the drastic cut in housing benefit in 1988, details of which—and of other cases from my constituency—I have sent to the Minister? Why do the Government continue to treat pensioners with such contempt?

There will be many gainers within housing benefit, precisely from the announcements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Some 75,000 pensioners as individuals will gain from those announcements.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what measures are being taken to make the arrangements for recovering maintenance from absent fathers more effective; and if he will make a statement.

We are reviewing the maintenance system to see what changes need to be made in the way that maintenance is assessed and collected, and plan to bring forward proposals later this year. Meanwhile, we are seeking to improve the existing system in various ways, most recently by the proposals contained in a new clause added to the Social Security Bill last week. The amount of maintenance received for lone-parent families on benefit increased from £155 million in 1988–89 to an expected £180 million in 1989–90, and we plan a further increase to £260 million in 1990–91.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the considerable hardship suffered by lone wives and lone mothers when fathers refuse to pay maintenance, sometimes even after court orders have given them instructions to do so? Does my right hon. Friend agree that those absent fathers are cheating not only their own children but the taxpayer, because the £200 million to which he referred could be better spent elsewhere in the social security system?

Yes. I have no doubt that it is right to improve maintenance arrangements in the interests of lone parents and their children, and to ensure that financial responsibilities do not necessarily fall on the taxpayer.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations he has received on the uprating of child benefit; and if he will make a statement.

We have received a number of representations from hon. Members, organisations and individuals expressing a wide variety of views.

Will the Minister persuade the Secretary of State for Social Security and the Prime Minister that, following the Government's U-turn on capital allowances in respect of poll tax, they should take another look at child benefit? Does not the Minister agree that the most cynical form of attack on the incomes of ordinary families is to allow child benefit to wither on the vine? The Government do not have the guts to abolish it altogether, and realise that its value should stay in line with purchasing power and be uprated each year. Will the Minister inform his ministerial colleagues that the 7·6 million families who receive child benefit know, like the lone parents to whom the previous question referred, that it is free of any stigma—which is why it is so important to the mothers of this country?

There is no policy of allowing child benefit to wither on the vine. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a duty, year by year, to review that benefit in the light of several factors. In recent years, we decided to concentrate help on less well-off families, poorer pensioners and the long-term sick and disabled, rather than uprate child benefit.