The number of pensioners in relative poverty has fallen by 900,000 since 1997, and the number in absolute poverty has fallen by 1.9 million.
The Government’s fuel poverty target has, according to their own advisers, been missed, so I wonder what warm words they can offer elderly people and pensioners who face dramatically increased fuel costs. The Government appear to have no clear strategy for addressing fuel poverty among the elderly, who will be too afraid to turn up or even to switch on the heating in case they incur very large bills. What action will they take to assist this most vulnerable section of our community?
I would have thought that the hon. Lady had informed her constituents that winter fuel payments will increase this year. There will be an extra £50 a week for those aged between 60 and 80 and an extra £100 for those aged over 80, bringing to £250 the amount that the Government provide to the elderly each year to help with their winter fuel bills. An extra £400 in winter fuel payments will be paid to those aged over 80. Indeed, we are going further than that by taking powers in the Pensions Bill, which is currently going through the other place, that will enable the data sharing of information with suppliers so that poorer pensioners can be put on to lower social tariffs, ensuring that they pay lower bills and get insulation. Warm Front has given 1.7 million homes assistance on insulation: an average of £2,700 has been provided to ensure that homes are insulated and fuel bills are kept down, so quite a lot is happening in this respect.
I welcome the progress in tackling pensioner poverty. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the most important safeguards against pensioner poverty, especially for women pensioners, is the chance to have a work-related pension pot, and will he say what progress is being made on the development of personal accounts?
We certainly need to ensure greater pension equality for women. We reformed the state pension system to ensure that the number of women who receive a full basic state pension will rise from about a third to 75 per cent. in 2010, and, indeed, up to 90 per cent. in the 15 years thereafter. That will give them equality with men, but it is only the basis of change. We are introducing automatic enrolment, which will ensure that the employers of millions of women currently unable to get a private pension will be obliged to provide one, into which the women will be automatically enrolled. Millions of women will be able to build a pension pot to give them a more secure retirement.
Last month, the town council of Pwllheli in my constituency wrote to the Secretary of State expressing concern about pensioner poverty. The reply referred to the availability of pensioner credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit. Is the Minister satisfied with the take-up of those benefits, and, if so, will he tell the House, and Pwllheli town council what the take-up level is?
I am not satisfied with the take-up of pension credit, which is why we are undertaking reforms, including, as of October this year, making pension credit, council tax benefit and housing benefit more easily accessible. We will introduce a series of changes whereby an application for one will automatically entitle someone to the others. Help the Aged and Age Concern have requested the change for a number of years, and it will be introduced from October. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is assured that action is being taken.
Our Labour Government’s passion for eradicating pensioner poverty should be applauded. Until April of this year, it could be said with certainty that no pensioner was worse off as a result of a Labour Government, and that the poorest were £40 a week better off. Given recent inflation figures, does my hon. and learned Friend believe that the rate of inflation, rather than the retail prices index, should apply to pension increases next year?
We have addressed the matter of uprating, but we want to restore the link with earnings, which, as my hon. Friend knows, the Conservatives removed some time ago. We have said clearly that we intend to restore the link by the target date of 2012, or in the course of the following Parliament, and we aim to use its restoration as a foundation block on which to build better pension entitlement for the long term.
Does the Minister accept that the latest figures, which show that an extra 300,000 of our older citizens now live in poverty—well above 2 million—are bad enough, but that since the statistics were prepared even more pensioners will have been driven into poverty by the recent surge in energy and other living costs? Is it not time that the Government got serious about tackling pensioner poverty?
I have to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he remembers that it was his party that broke the earnings link—this party is committed to restoring it. Does he remember that his party left millions of pensioners destitute and in poverty, on £68.80 a week? Under us, the minimum that people have a right to receive is £124, and we hope to be able to continue to increase it. We have lifted 1.9 million people out of absolute poverty—poverty that his party left those people in.
Whatever happens in the course of the next winter, one thing is certain: I do not expect anybody from our Front Bench to tell old-age pensioners to knit a woolly hat or to take a hot water bottle to bed, just like the Minister did in those grim Tory years. What was her name? It was Edwina Currie, and there are a load of them on the Tory Benches that act just like her.
My hon. Friend is entirely right. We do not need to say that, because we will provide additional help to pensioners so that they can turn up the heating rather than worry about having to knit. The Conservative party’s attitudes are exemplified by that comment, and this Government’s attitudes are exemplified by the fact that we are increasing payments to pensioners at the very time when fuel bills are going up. We acknowledge that, and we are doing something to help pensioners.
The Minister will know that the elderly tend to look to their families to give them some support after they have retired, which no doubt saves the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds. However, if their children have emigrated, particularly to Commonwealth countries, and they follow them to those countries, we treat them as second-class citizens and do not uprate their pensions. They can therefore become impoverished. When are we going to bring justice to British pensioners who decide to emigrate to Commonwealth countries to live closer to their families in retirement?
The hon. Gentleman will know that the long-standing policy, which both the Conservatives and this Government have adopted, is that we will not uprate the pensions of those in non-EU countries unless we have an agreement for reciprocal uprating with those countries. Although a case can be made for those who live in other countries, if there is additional money to spend and there are still issues of pensioner poverty in this country, which there are, my priority ought to be to reduce that poverty. If there is any extra money, that is what I intend it to be spent on.