To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to encourage people to take out value-for-money pensions. [4334]

We want to ensure that all pensioners can share fairly in rising national prosperity. We will support and strengthen the existing framework for occupational pensions. We will develop stakeholder pensions to offer secure, flexible, value-for-money pensions, particularly to those who cannot join an employer's occupational pension scheme, or whose pay is low, or who have intermittent wages, and for whom personal pensions may therefore be unsuitable.

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. Over several years, there has been a sad decline in the membership of occupational pension schemes. How will my hon. Friend tackle the effects of, for instance, the flexible labour market on the membership of such schemes?

My hon. Friend is right: there has been a sharp decline in the membership of occupational pension schemes, particularly among men. Part of that was caused by the mis-selling of personal pensions to members of occupational schemes. I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome the action that my colleagues in the Treasury are taking to sort the problem out.

Many people in the flexible labour market cannot join an employer's occupational scheme, because there is not one on offer. They may be badly hit by high fees and charges for existing personal pensions. It is to give those people some of the advantages of occupational pensions that we wish to develop stakeholder pension schemes.

Does the Minister acknowledge the international recognition of the extremely sound basis of British pension provision, as endorsed by a recent report by the International Monetary Fund? Will he give an assurance that in no particular will the Government threaten the soundness of that basis?

It is certainly true that the size of funded occupational pensions is a strength. Occupational pensions have always been supported by Labour Governments; indeed, membership of occupational pension schemes has peaked under Labour Governments and declined under Conservative Governments. I hope that the strength of the British pension scheme in that regard will continue to be recognised, but we must tackle the problems faced by people who have no opportunity to take advantage of a good, value-for-money employer's occupational scheme.

Will the Minister also take account of the huge black hole that has been created by the fact that many workers are now on temporary wage contracts, and cannot enter occupational pension schemes? Will he do anything to remedy the problem?

My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. It is one of the difficulties to which I have been referring. Some of the personal pension schemes that are currently on the market will impose very high charges, and will take a large proportion of people's savings if, for example, they can enter and stay in the schemes only for a few months or years. That is why the Government place emphasis on developing value-for-money, flexible schemes that will not unfairly penalise people who change their jobs or spend periods outside the labour market.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on her policy on benefits for lone parents. [4335]

The Government believe that work is the best form of welfare for people of working age, and we are committed to a package of measures that will help lone mothers to move off benefits and into work so that they and their children can be better off.

Decisions on benefits for lone parents will be announced at the time of the Budget.

Does the right hon. Lady agree with her right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who said:

"Tax and benefit policy was squeezed to help single parents"—

Order. Hon. Members do not quote at Question Time. Paraphrase, please.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead made it clear that he felt that a policy of differential benefits for lone parents should be abolished. Will the right hon. Lady now say that she will provide the same benefits for two-parent families as are provided for lone parents?

What we are concerned about is the differential in opportunities between married or cohabiting women and lone mothers. When her youngest child reaches the age of five, the married or cohabiting woman will often start to look for work. When she is able to go out to work and contribute to her family budget, the family is better off. However, lone mothers remain trapped on benefit and after 18 years of Conservative Government policies, about 1 million lone mothers are on income support and bringing up 2.2 million children on the breadline. We want to ensure that lone mothers have opportunities to work so that, like lone mothers in the rest of Europe, they do not have to bring up their children on benefits.

Like my right hon. Friend, I accept that the best policy on benefits for lone parents is to help them to get off benefit and back into work. Bearing that in mind, will my right hon. Friend reflect on the predicament of the Whitfield sitter service and Whitfield community nursery in my constituency, both of which provide affordable, quality child care to lone parents to enable them to get back into work? Because their urban programme funding runs out this year, both those organisations face closure later this year.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be wholly counterproductive to allow such excellent organisations to close because of a lack of public funding when their closure will inevitably force lone parents out of work and back on to welfare, leading to an increase in public expenditure, which I am sure neither my right hon. Friend nor the Chancellor wish to see?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of Whitfield community nursery in his constituency. He is right to say that child care is essential to underpin the opportunities for lone mothers to go to work. That is why the Government consider the national child care strategy to be of central importance. It will ensure a choice of affordable, high-quality accessible child care so that lone mothers can be sure that, when they go to work, their children are playing and learning safely with other adults. Together with my ministerial colleagues, I shall look into the issue of the nursery in his constituency.

May I take this opportunity to welcome the Secretary of State and her Ministers to their places and wish them the best of luck? We shall try to be constructive in opposition and shall look at each of the Government's proposals on its merits. However, we shall also judge them against the high level of expectation that they raised in the run-up to the general election.

Many times in the run-up to the election, the right hon. Lady, made it quite clear that she did not believe in equal benefits for single and two-parent families. She has made it clear that she would reverse the Conservative Government's proposals. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) has said, on 28 November the Minister of State made it quite clear that he took a different view.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the right hon. Lady is unlikely to have her way in the Department in this case. Is she absolutely determined to stand by her commitments to reverse what we instigated and, if she does not get her way, what will she do?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman and his shadow colleague to their new positions. I also welcome his statement that he will make constructive proposals and engage in constructive debate. If the hon. Gentleman considers what I said in the run-up to the general election and looks at Labour party documents from that time, he will see that our approach was made absolutely clear. We want what lone mothers want for themselves and their children, which is to be better off in work than on benefit.

The Policy Studies Institute recently completed research which shows that a lone mother with two children moving off income support and into work on in-work benefits are likely to be £50 a week better off. At the heart of the Government's approach is a welfare-to-work strategy with the opportunities that lone parents seek for themselves. The Government will back them to ensure that they get those opportunities.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to review the rules governing eligibility for the jobseeker's allowance. [4336]

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what changes she plans to make to the jobseeker's allowance. [4338]

The Government believe that work is the best form of welfare for people of working age. Our welfare-to-work objectives are to provide work incentives, to reduce poverty and welfare dependency and to strike a new balance between rights and responsibilities. A programme of monitoring and evaluation is under way to enable us to ensure that the jobseeker's allowance contributes to achieving our objectives.

In reviewing the jobseeker's allowance, will the Minister examine cases such as that of my constituent, Mr. Peter Free, who is undertaking a worthwhile course and who has been told by the job centre to give it up, despite doing well in the first year of the course, in favour of a dead-end job? Is that the Government's policy, or will they break from the previous Government's policy?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me advance notice of that constituency case. Clearly, within the evaluation of the jobseeker's allowance, we are carefully considering the way in which education and training interact with the need to return to work. I have considered carefully the constituency case. I do not think that it would be appropriate to discuss the precise details in the Chamber, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that, after questions today, I will discuss the matter further with him to ensure that his constituent is given the correct advice on training and job opportunities.

I am delighted to hear that we are reviewing the benefit, but I wonder whether the Minister—I mean my hon. Friend; I have just got to get into the habit—could help me with a few immediate points. What have we done in the meantime to ease administration of the benefit, to ease the petty meanness, to protect the staff and to ease the strain on them, all of which we exposed powerfully when the legislation was passed?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for asking that question, because it is essential that we give credit to the staff who deal with claimants for the benefit. We have to ensure that it is administered efficiently and effectively, and that it forms a proper platform of our welfare-to-work programme. I assure him that his points will form part of the evaluation.

Given the Minister's reply to the original question, what will be the difference between his approach to the jobseeker's allowance and that of the previous Government?

The most essential part of the jobseeker's allowance is integral to our welfare-to-work programme: that we put forward options that give genuine opportunities for people to return to work, because work is what they want. That is the difference between this Government and the previous Government, who did not put work at the top of the agenda.

Will my hon. Friend carefully consider the way in which people with learning difficulties are treated in the assessment for the allowance?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know of his particular concern on this issue from previous correspondence and from the occasions when he has raised the matter in the House. I assure him again that, within the evaluation, the problems of people with learning difficulties will be fully taken into account in our welfare-to-work programmes.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what recent representations she has received on the level of the state pension. [4337]

The Government are committed to reviewing all the main areas of insecurity affecting pensioners. In that review, pensioners' views will be important, but the review will take place within a framework of trying to achieve two objectives. The first is how we ensure pensioners share in this country's rising prosperity; the second is how we automatically deliver more help to the poorest pensioners.

Will the Minister tell the House and my constituents in Southend, West what proportion of average retirement income the state pension accounts for today, and what proportion he expects it to account for in five years' time?

All that I can say is that, under the previous Government, the state pension's value fell by 6 per cent: from 21 per cent. of average earnings to 15 per cent. of average earnings. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait a little longer to see the successes of our reviews and of our economic strategy before anyone can sensibly answer that question.

Will my right hon. Friend give us the assurance—I am sure that he can—that, in any discussions about the level of the pension, his Department will keep in the closest possible contact with the various pensioners' groups and organisations? Does he agree that one of the problems in dealing with pensioners' groups is the profound sense of betrayal they feel, which they certainly felt and expressed in the general election, about the way they were treated by the previous Government, when, despite the massive advantages of income from North sea oil, they did not get a fair deal?

I was trying to make that point, although I did not do so as effectively as my hon. Friend, in my supplementary answer to the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess). It is crucial not only that we ensure that pensioners have a stake in the rising prosperity of this country and that we listen carefully to the voices of pensioners, but that we widen the debate so that all of us realise that most of us will one day be pensioners and that we have an interest in the evolving pension debate which the Government are leading.

In the light of the right hon. Gentleman's previous answer, will he explain the comments that the Secretary of State made last October at the Labour party conference, which led many people to believe that, in government, she would consider raising the linkage of state pension to wages rather than prices? Is he aware that, if that were to happen by only 1 per cent. over and above the rate of inflation, it would cost £300 million in the first year and £4.5 billion by the fifth year?

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain where that money would come from and whether the Treasury is in agreement—or was it simply a question of seeking to give hints, nods and winks to interest groups which the Government had no intention of fulfilling once they came to power?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new position. I suggest that, if he wishes to make a constructive contribution to the evolving welfare debate, it would be better if he did not misrepresent what my right hon. Friend said and accepted that parties are bound by their election manifestos. If he has not had a copy of our election manifesto, I shall be happy to send him one.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the Government's proposals to improve services to those claiming benefit. [4339]

We will modernise the social security system to improve services to claimants. We want a system that is speedy, fair and efficient; the system that we have inherited from the previous Government is complex, lengthy and unfair.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does she agree that it is very slow and inefficient for people to have to wait on average six months, or up to a year in some instances in my constituency, for an appeal or a decision on appeal? Is not that the direct responsibility of the previous Government? Does she further agree that by simplifying the decision and appeals system, the Government will make a start on modernising the welfare state?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. She said that, once an appeal against benefit refusal has been lodged, it can take up to six months on average for the appeal to be determined. Unfortunately, some cases lodged as much as two years ago are still awaiting a determination of appeal. It is not acceptable that it can take people up to two years to find their way through the 13 different appeals systems to get their appeal determined.

The system treats people unfairly: on the one hand, it offers people the right to appeal but, on the other, it tells many people at the end of a very long process that they had no chance of success anyway. That is not acceptable. We shall modernise the system to ensure a speedy, fair and efficient service for people who appeal against benefit decisions, and I shall be making further announcements shortly.

Is the right hon. Lady aware that a constituent of mine recently fainted after standing in a queue for a benefit payment? Is it not possible for the Government to follow the practice of virtually every private sector organisation and arrange a proper queuing system in benefit offices or, better still, treat applicants with respect and provide chairs?

In the circumstances described, it is totally unacceptable that a constituent should faint while waiting to be seen at a caller office. The solution will be not only a fair queuing system but speedier service delivery and a speedier response to people who visit Benefits Agency offices. The system for telephoning offices also must be modernised and updated, in line with people's expectations about what a modern service should deliver.

Queueing has ceased to be a feature in the former Soviet Union, and it should not be a feature of our Benefits Agency. We are determined to shorten the time that people must wait for answers to their queries. If possible, we want their queries to be dealt with on the telephone, so that they do not have to queue.

Does my right hon. Friend realise that complexities in the mortgage interest payment system cause many difficulties for people who are eligible for mortgage benefit? The system should be simplified so that Benefits Agency staff can get it right and avoid causing problems for people with mortgages.

We certainly want simpler claim forms and a system that is easier for claimants to understand. We also want a system that is understood by staff to be fairer and more efficient. Most often people have problems paying their mortgages and have to visit Benefits Agency offices because they are without work. We should ensure not only that people do not get into problems paying their mortgages but that they are advised and helped back into work. For people of working age, the social security system should not be about a handout but about a hand-up. Most people of working age who have mortgage problems have such problems because they are not in work. Welfare to work is a central part of the Government's strategy.

As we await the Government's review of Benefits Agency regulations on timetabling and dealing with appeals, will Ministers allocate more resources to solving the immediate crisis, which is causing enormous hardship for people in very vulnerable situations? Those people's lives have been shattered because the Benefits Agency cannot speedily resolve its quagmire of decisions.

Before the general election and in our manifesto, we said that we would stick to existing departmental spending totals. However, our priorities are different from those of the previous Government. One of our priorities is to improve service delivery, both at first instance and on appeal. We believe that there is much that we can do within the system to improve services for claimants in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and across the country. We will soon be making further announcements on that matter.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to reform the Benefits Agency's change programme. [4340]

We are determined to modernise the social security system. Before the election, we stated our views about the Benefits Agency change programme and said that we would take a practical, non-ideological approach to the best way of delivering public services. The previous Government said, "Public bad; private good." We ask whether it works and whether it is fair—to those who use the services, to those who work in the services and to the taxpayer. Those are our criteria.

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Is she aware, however, that the change programme instituted by the previous Government constituted an attack on the public sector, an attempt to destroy public sector jobs and an attempt to make private greed out of poverty?

Before the election, we stated what our approach would be, and said that our approach would be different from that of the previous Government. As I said, the previous Government believed that everything that was delivered by the public sector must be bad, and that everything must be privatised. We take a practical, non-ideological view. We have said that we will seek opportunities for extra investment by the private sector, that we will keep within spending totals and that we will review all projects that are in the pipeline. We have already met the trade union side. My ministerial team is examining proposals, project by project, and meeting the staff involved. My team is also discussing the proposals with the appropriate trade union side. We have stated the criteria against which we will review each project.

As part of her reforms, will the Secretary of State take steps to accelerate the payment of child benefit to parents under pressure, particularly those who are worried by the Government's policies as their children attend grammar schools?

We are always concerned to ensure prompt, efficient, speedy payment of benefit, irrespective of the school choice of the mother who is entitled to receive that benefit on behalf of her children.

Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that there is real concern about the reduction of the administrative budget available to the Benefits Agency over the next two years, as that may prejudice not only customer and claimant services but the security of the staff involved and the uptake of means-tested benefits? That is particularly true in rural areas.

The right hon. Lady may be aware that today in the East Edinburgh and Borders district some changes are being made involving the relocation of processing and there are local concerns that that is the thin end of the wedge. Can she give us an assurance that the Benefits Agency will secure particularly remote local offices so that the service to claimants continues and the uptake of benefit is not prejudiced by the change programme over the next two years?

The hon. Gentleman has rightly identified two of our objectives: first, to keep within the spending total and secondly to improve services to claimants. I am well aware of the challenge of ensuring that good services are delivered in rural areas. We need some new, innovative thinking about how we deliver services to people in rural areas.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the proposed change in the Benefits Agency offices in his constituency and we shall be looking closely at that issue. However, one of our central objectives is to provide a better service to claimants, unlike the previous Government who thought that anyone who claimed benefits was a scrounger and that however bad the treatment they received, it was too good for them. We agree with the hon. Gentleman that the services must improve.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to review social security income-related benefits. [4342]

The Government are committed to a wide-ranging review of social security, including income-related benefits. Its aim is to reward work, savings and honesty.

In the past, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Bradley) and other Labour Members condemned family credit as a subsidy for poor employers. Do the Government now plan to phase out family credit in the near future?

The hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that my hon. Friend made any such accusation. A review is under way, but I should be very surprised if that were its conclusion.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, despite predictions to the contrary, the previous Administration managed to double the number of people receiving benefit? Does he agree that in one in five households where people could work, no one is actually working and that that is one of the worst records in the industrialised world?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. In respect merely of income-related benefits, under the previous Administration the numbers claiming means-tested help rose from 10 million to 15 million. Part of the reason for that is that work is unevenly distributed. One of the aims of our review is to ensure that the benefit system does not act as a hidden hand, ensuring that some households get many jobs and others get none.

In setting out the laudable aims of his review, will the Minister tell us what co-ordination there is with a similar review in the Department of the Environment on housing policy, that, on its own declared aim, seeks to revert to giving priority in two identical cases to someone who is nominally homeless—even with connivance—over those who have honestly taken their place in the queue?

I can happily reassure the hon. Gentleman that there will be close co-ordination between Departments in the review.

But there should not be such close co-ordination at Question Time.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what estimate she has made of the proportion of pensioners who do not claim the income support to which they are entitled. [4343]

One in four pensioners receive or are entitled to income support, but more than one in three of them do not receive the income support to which they are entitled. We are committed to examining ways to bring more automatic help to the poorest pensioners and are commissioning research to establish why so many pensioners do not receive the income support to which they are entitled.

Is it not true that the reason for non-take-up of the benefit is not personal choice, as the previous Government claimed, but the stigma of claiming income support? Is it not also true that non-take-up of the benefit is greatest among women? Just under 1 million women do not claim the benefit and do not have a second pension. Will my hon. Friend give a high priority to examining second pensions for women?

My hon. Friend is right. The previous Administration claimed that benefits were not taken up by choice, but they never undertook any substantial research to establish the real situation. Without prejudging the outcome of our research, I think that it is likely that we shall find that stigma is an important factor in non-take-up and that there are many older single women without additional pension rights among those who are going without the support of the benefit. In the longer term, we should enable more people to develop an adequate second pension on top of their basic state pension, so that they can enjoy security in retirement.

Can the Under-Secretary adduce any evidence, in relation to pensioners or anyone else, for the Secretary of State's assertion a little while ago at the Dispatch Box that the previous Administration thought that anyone who claimed benefit was a scrounger? Does he not think that, if we are to have a sensible debate on welfare reform, we need a more mature approach than was demonstrated by the Secretary of State?

The message that my right hon. Friend spoke about was evident throughout the 18 long years of the previous Administration—in everything that they said, in their demonstrable lack of interest in why the poorest pensioners go without assistance and in their casualness about the quality of service offered by the social security system.

Given that only pensioners in receipt of income support are eligible for cold weather payments during the severest weather, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a scandal that, in Britain, every winter—I suspect that this will be the case again during the coming winter—30,000 elderly people die from cold-related medical conditions? Will he initiate a take-up campaign for income support as soon as possible, so that people in their 80s and 90s who have served this country well do not have to make the terrible judgment this winter whether to heat their property or to eat?

It is a scandal that so many pensioners suffer in that way and that this country's record is apparently so much worse than that of other European countries, including those that suffer a more hostile winter climate. We are concerned to encourage take-up and have commissioned research to understand why pensioners do not receive income support—which is a passport to other important benefits—so that we can deal with it as effectively as possible.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans Her Majesty's Government have to increase the retirement pension beyond the increase in the retail prices index: and if she will make a statement. [4345]

We shall announce the uprating of the retirement pension at the normal time. Our manifesto said that we would increase it at least in line with prices.

Does the Minister accept that it would be helpful if the Government could say whether they intend to increase the pension above the rate of the retail prices index in the longer term? In the meantime, will he consider carefully the possibility of linking pension rises to a separate pensioners' price index that takes full account of the special needs and costs faced by elderly people compared with those faced by others in the community?

That is an interesting question from an hon. Member who supported the previous Administration for most, if not all, of the past 18 years, during which neither of the two things that he has suggested was done. In contrast to the previous Government, we shall have a review of the central areas of insecurity for elderly people, which will include the basic state pension and its value. Again in contrast to the previous Administration, we will listen to the views of pensioners and pensioner organisations during that review.

Is my hon. Friend aware that about the last group of people who should criticise us on pensions are the Tories, whose behaviour in office was quite disgraceful? Is he also aware that many pensioners believe that they should receive an increase above the retail prices index, that they have a very strong case indeed and that they have a great deal of support on the Government Benches? One hopes that it will not be long before the Government are in a financial position to give pensioners the rewards to which they are perfectly entitled.

My hon. Friend is right in his judgment of the previous Administration. We shall increase the basic state pension at least in line with prices. We shall have a review of the central area of insecurity facing pensioners to ensure that we hear their voices and listen to their concerns. We have made it clear that we are committed to examining ways to get more automatic help to the poorest pensioners. I look forward to the cut in VAT on fuel, which will cut pensioners' winter fuel bills.

Are the Government still considering the proposal for a flexible decade of retirement from age 60, which the Secretary of State said before the election would involve a lowering of the basic state pension by £20 a week?

My right hon. Friend did not make any such statement before the election. We did say before the election that there are attractions in a flexible decade of retirement and that we would wish to move in that direction. I have no doubt that it is one of the matters that will be considered in the pensions review. I want to make it perfectly clear that there is no question of anybody who is retired today or who retires at state retirement age in future receiving anything other than the right pension for that age.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when she expects to issue new housing benefit regulations. [4346]

We gave a commitment before the election to review the regulations that extended the single room rent to people aged 25 and over. We have done so—in the context of our commitment to keeping within spending totals.

We have listened to the advice and views of hon. Members—including those on the Environment Committee, on which I know my hon. Friend played a major part—local authorities and housing organisations such as Shelter and Crisis and decided not to go ahead with the single room rent provision for over 25-year-olds. We will revoke the regulations laid by the previous Government.

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, which is very welcome. What is the magic about the age of 25? Will it be possible to reduce the hardship being suffered by people under 25 years old?

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the situation of those under 25 years old. The previous Government had already introduced a single room rent provision for under-25-year-olds, which requires them to live in shared accommodation. They cannot get housing benefit for anything more than a shared room; it will not even cover a bedsit. That was one of the many measures brought in by the previous Government which we opposed.

I have made an announcement today about one of the measures that was on the table when we arrived in government. The regulations had been laid in the House but had not been implemented. Although the rest of the announcements on benefits will be made around the time of the Budget, we brought forward this announcement because we knew that, due to regulations laid before the House, local authorities were making plans to implement the single room rent for over 25-year-olds.

Will the Secretary of State consider trying to simplify the housing benefit regulations and making them more humane? I have wrestled with them for many years as a councillor and now as a Member of Parliament, and I know that they are complex and put many people off claiming their rights.

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. The complexity of the housing benefit system means that people are not able to understand the factors that change their entitlement. There is also clear evidence that the way the system works keeps some people on benefit because they cannot pay their housing costs if they start work. We have already announced that we will review housing benefit as part of wider housing policy.

The previous Government abandoned any attempt to have a housing policy for those on lower incomes: they stood back and let the housing benefit system take the strain. It did—to the tune of £11 billion a year—while investment in housing collapsed. The review will be undertaken cross-departmentally, but in the meantime we need to ensure that the current system is made simpler and easier to understand.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the Government's policy for getting young people off benefit and into work. [4347]

The Government believe that work is preferable to welfare. Shortly, the House will be given details of our plans to offer real opportunities to 250,000 young people who have been unemployed for six months or more.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that one of the saddest aspects of the former Government's policy was their failure to give opportunities to young people and that, as a result, between 500,000 and 600,000 young people are now out of work? For the benefit of the Conservatives, will he reiterate his determination to ensure that young people are given opportunities and their life chances are improved?

I willingly give that commitment to my hon. Friend. I hope that the House will appreciate that, when the plans for moving people from welfare to work are unveiled, we will offer that group of claimants an opportunity that no other Government have ever offered them. Because we regard every individual as important, they will all be given four options. Because we will meet that part of our commitment, the Prime Minister's view that there should be no fifth option of remaining on benefit will also be part of the package.

Does the Minister of State agree that the complexity of his welfare-to-work programme gives scope for wider benefit fraud? Will he confirm that he has asked his officials to consider that problem; that they have advised that there is greater scope; and that the arrangements to prevent that would cost extra money?

I, too, welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and look forward to his using his considerable skills to develop our welfare reform programme.

Given the lead the Social Security Committee took on fraud in the previous Parliament, is he not trying to teach his grandmother to suck eggs?

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when she will hold discussions with the Home Office on the social security rules governing benefits to asylum seekers. [4350]

As the House is aware, we are committed to a wide-ranging review of social security. Our aim is to encourage independence and reduce poverty. With the Home Office, the Department of Health and other Departments, we will consider all arrangements for asylum seekers to ensure that they are dealt with fairly and promptly.

Will my hon. Friend ensure that the review is conducted urgently? Asylum seekers and their dependants, who are sometimes young children, should not have to wait long periods without social security subsistence and their asylum applications should be decided promptly. Can Government policy be co-ordinated so that starvation is not used as a weapon against asylum applicants?

I am as anxious as my hon. Friend that the review of the asylum system is undertaken across Departments as swiftly as possible. It is crucial that we speed up the process of determining applications to ensure that the scenario that my hon. Friend raises does not happen. The review is led by the Home Office, which has prime responsibility, but I shall ensure that the departmental review is undertaken as swiftly as possible.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will visit Arcola street social security office to discuss the number of single—parent mothers in Hackney on benefit. [4351]

I intend to visit many social security offices to talk to claimants and staff and listen to their views. I have already visited offices in Streatham and Brighton and members of my ministerial team are undertaking a continual series of visits to benefit offices. I shall visit the Arcola street office in my hon. Friend's constituency in the near future. We are committed to a package of measures that will help lone mothers to move off benefit and be better off in work in Hackney.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Government's package of measures to encourage lone mothers to move from welfare to work has been widely welcomed—particularly by lone mothers themselves, the majority of whom want to work and, indeed, are anxious to do so. Will she take this opportunity to assure the House that although every encouragement and support will be given to lone mothers to move from welfare to work, single mothers with children of school age will never be forced to go to work on pain of losing their benefit?

We are not proposing compulsion for lone mothers to take work. As my hon. Friend says, we are backing their desire to have the opportunity to go out to work, to be better off and to have a better life for themselves and their children. There is, however, one element of compulsion in the programme—fathers must pay for their children. In our view, we can tackle child poverty in lone-parent families by ensuring two things—first, that the mother can go out to work and, secondly, that the father pays for his children.

Does the Secretary of State agree that, important as it is to get single parents back to work—whether in Hackney or elsewhere—it is even more important that, when a kid comes out of school at 3.30, his mother is there to take him home, to help him with his homework, to keep him off the streets and to give him love, guidance and affection?

Before the Secretary of State replies, I should tell the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) that her supplementary question should have followed more closely the substantive question on the Order Paper, as should the question from the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). I hope that the House will note that, in future, supplementary questions must follow what is on the Order Paper. I will allow the Secretary of State to respond.

We are backing lone mothers' desire to work. All the evidence shows that lone mothers do not want to depend on benefit—they want a better standard of living for themselves and their children, and they do not want their children to experience only benefit dependency. They want their children to know that the world of work is for them and that they cannot expect to live on benefits.

Many lone mothers want to go back to work, particularly when their youngest child starts school—after all, that is what many married or cohabiting women do. Some married or cohabiting women work during school hours in term time but not at half-term or holidays; others work during school hours and holidays and make arrangements for their children during that time.

It is not for the House to tell mothers to be at the school gates to collect their children. The House should back parents and ensure that the arrangements that they make for their children are satisfactory for them. That is why, as part of the welfare-to-work measures, we are proposing that £150 million be provided by the lottery for after-school clubs. There is enormous demand from both lone and married mothers to ensure that, after school, children can engage in activities for which time cannot be found during the school day. That will give mothers opportunities to work, but it is not for the House to tell mothers how to do their business.

In future, the Secretary of State's responses also should relate to the question, which in this case is about Arcola street social security office and the number of single-parent mothers in Hackney, and nowhere else.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on her assessment of the Chilean national pension scheme as a potential model for reform of the old age pension in the United Kingdom. [4352]

The Chilean national pension scheme has serious drawbacks as a model for pension provision in the United Kingdom. Only 60 per cent. of the scheme's members are contributing to it, and administration costs are high.

Our aim is to enable people to avoid poverty and dependence on the state in retirement. We will retain the basic state pension as the foundation of pension provision, strengthen occupational schemes and develop a framework for stakeholder pensions for those who are not able to join a good quality occupational scheme.

In the carefree days when the Minister for Welfare Reform, as he is now, led the Social Security Committee to Chile for interviews with Dr. Piñera and other leading pension pioneers, the Committee saw the benefits of a funded scheme for Chile, which is the model that is increasingly being followed throughout the developing and industrialised world. Why does the Labour party set its face against such reform, which in Chile and elsewhere has proved both an agent for growth and a source of prosperity in old age undreamed of in countries such as ours?

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads the report drafted by the Select Committee on its return from Chile. He will find that my right hon. Friend reached the same conclusion that I have just reported to the House about the failings of the Chilean pension system. It is essential that we are not blind to the defects of pension schemes around the world.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Chilean pension scheme was introduced by Jose Piñera, who was part of the fascist Government of the time, that it was designed to destroy the developing welfare state in Chile and that its whole purpose was to reduce the cost to employers of any kind of national insurance system and make workers' contributions into a private insurance scheme compulsory, which is expensive, inefficient and ineffective in providing them with a decent benefit? It should have no part whatever in any consideration of welfare state development in this country.

My hon. Friend is right, I think, about the timing of those events. As we develop our pensions review over the coming months—we will announce the details shortly—we should judge proposals that are put to us, as our proposals should be judged, by their ability to enable people to achieve security in retirement. That, I suspect, will mean that we need the right balance between state and private provision and between the costs that fall on one generation and on another. As part of that, we will need to forge effective partnerships with the private sector to extend pension provision.

I welcome the Minister to his post. Can he confirm that the pensions review will rule nothing in and nothing out, including the proposal from Dr. Piñera in Chile that we should move towards a funded pension, whether private or occupational? Would it be his view that the Chancellor should make that a priority in the Budget?

The details of the pensions review will be announced shortly and will obviously include its terms of reference. It is already a matter of record that we want the process to be open and inclusive; we want to encourage new ideas and innovative thinking while consulting on some of our manifesto commitments, such as an examination of stakeholder pensions and the possibility of a citizenship pension for carers. I hope that the outcome will be the sustainable consensus that this country needs on the future of pensions policy.

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if she will make a statement on the Government's plans for improving services to benefit claimants. [4353]

We are reviewing how we deliver benefits to customers. In any such review, the views of customers will be crucial.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one way of improving services to benefit claimants would be to ensure access to good quality advice and information? What role would that play in the review of social security that his Department is undertaking?

The review that we are undertaking will obviously include my hon. Friend's points. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), said earlier how we are seeking to find out why so many older pensioners do not claim the help to which they are entitled. As well as conducting national surveys, we are interested in what is happening at grass roots level. I have followed closely what my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) has pioneered in his constituency. We are anxious to learn those lessons and feed them into our review.