:If he will make a statement about the pilot study carried out by his Department in York to encourage take-up of income support by pensioners. [73038]

As a Back-Bench Member for the City of York, I welcomed the Government's decision to pilot take-up activity in York. The outcome of a pilot in York, and in the eight other locations, is being analysed. Until the full evaluation is complete, the results will not be meaningful, and it would be premature to comment.

Given that official estimates suggest that at least 500,000 pensioners do not claim the income support to which they are entitled, how many pensioners in York and North Yorkshire does my hon. Friend estimate will be eligible for the Government's new minimum income guarantee when it becomes effective in April, and what plans does he have to use publicity to encourage them to claim their entitlement?

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. When it is introduced, a minimum income guarantee will prove a real boon to the poorest pensioners, providing a minimum of £75 a week for single pensioners and £116.60 for couples. We estimate that approximately 4,000 pensioners will benefit from the minimum income guarantee in the York local authority district, and about 14,500 in North Yorkshire.

What proportion of total payments made by his Department are means-tested. [73039]

The proportion of total social security expenditure going on means-tested benefits was 34 per cent. in 1997–98. In 1979, it was 16 per cent.

Does the Secretary of State agree that means-tested benefits are much more expensive to administer than universal benefits and can be grossly unfair? Is it not a fact that someone who has saved for his or her retirement can actually be worse off than someone who has made no provision and who will get the benefit of the minimum income guarantee, together with housing benefits and council tax benefit? How can he possibly begin to justify that to decent and respectable people who want to remain independent?

If means-tested benefits are unfair, they were as unfair in 1979 as they are now. The hon. Gentleman supported the previous Government when they doubled the number of means-tested benefits.

When we came into office, we found that the disparity in income had grown dramatically over 18 years, and we deliberately set about doing far more for poorer people— by introducing the working families tax credit, the disability income guarantee, the minimum income guarantee for pensioners and other measures. We have also increased universal benefits, such as child benefit, and our pensions proposals are designed to ensure that we end one of the great scandals of today—that more than a third of pensioners are likely to rely on income-related benefits when they retire. We aim to lift those people out of that position.

The Government are taking action across the board, but I do not agree that means-tested benefits are inherently wrong. They do a great deal to help the poorest people in our society.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, when the Tories talk about means-tested benefits, my constituents live in fear that they really want to talk about cutting benefits and attacking people in poverty? Is not the difference between the parties that, when the Labour party talks about means-testing, we talk about ensuring that those most in need get the benefits that they deserve?

The working families tax credit has a very flat taper; it is designed to help people who would not otherwise receive help, and to make work pay. We are determined to do—as we said that we would in our manifesto—far more to help the poorest pensioners, some of whom did very badly in the previous 18 years. Unlike the Conservative party, we are genuinely anxious to tackle not just the immediate effects of poverty but, above all, the causes of poverty, into which far too many people have fallen.

Is it not both unreasonable and thoroughly unfair that, according to the Government's proposals, the only pensioners who can look forward to their earnings in retirement being linked to average earnings will be those who qualify for income support—for the Government's so-called minimum income guarantee? Under the Government's proposals, nobody who has earned an occupational pension or a state retirement pension by contributing to the national insurance system for 40 years can dream of that measure of protection. Are not the Government thoroughly ashamed that, after all the rhetoric of the last Parliament and all the promises delivered by hundreds of Labour candidates before the general election, no move at all has been made to deliver on the promise to link the state retirement pension to earnings?

It is my recollection that the Conservative Government broke the earnings link with pensions in 1981, and we certainly made it very clear that we were not proposing to restore the earnings link with pensions. Instead, we have done two things. We have made proposals to put the long-term basis of pensions on a proper footing, with a new state second pension that will help those on the lowest earnings and that is designed to ensure that someone who works for a lifetime and saves during that period need not rely on income support at the point at which they retire. Our other proposals are all designed to alleviate the poverty that we inherited among pensioners and others. Across the board, the Government are determined not only to deal with the effects of poverty but to mount a sustained attack on the causes of poverty by making work pay and helping others who are unable to work.

Would not the best way of achieving my right hon. Friend's aim of fewer pensioners reliant on income support and other means-tested benefits be to raise the level of the basic pension? The Conservative party broke the earnings link in 1980. If it had been maintained, the basic pension next month would be not £66 but £90. Does my right hon. Friend agree that most of the pensioners who will not receive the guaranteed minimum income—between 400,000 and 700,000 of them—are those who say, "For all our lives we have never taken any handouts and we will not start now"? They would accept an increase if it were an entitlement and on the basic pension, but they will not take it if it is on income support because they perceive it as a handout. We have enough money—more than £6 billion—and the cost would be £3 billion. Why do we not go some way towards undoing the damage done by the Conservative Government and raise the basic minimum pension to £75 this year?

The cost of increasing the pension to £75 this year would be substantial. I point out to my hon. Friend that more than half of those who do not receive the minimum income guarantee have excess capital of more than £20,000. About 190,000 people have capital of more than £50,000. In our pension proposals, we ensured that we had a new system through the state second pension that would benefit those who are on lower earnings throughout their lifetime. Alongside that is the £2.5 billion package that we announced last summer. We make no bones about it: we decided that, rather than spread the sum available far more thinly—something that would not have helped some of the poorest pensioners about whom my hon. Friend and I are most concerned— we would give far more help to those on lower incomes.

If we increased the basic state pension to £75 a week, that would cost about £3 billion. I believe that it is far better to spend our money helping those pensioners who did least well over the preceding 18 years, as well as putting into law proposals that will ensure that the problem is not so acute in years to come.

What steps he is taking to improve the financial position of the bereaved. [73040]

The reforms in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill will provide specific help for the first time to widowers as well as widows. The new lump sum bereavement payment at £2,000 will be double the value of the existing widow's payment. Our aim is to concentrate help where and when it is most needed at the time immediately following bereavement and on those with children.

I know that the Department received a letter from Captain Mongor pointing out that, as recently as September 1998, it wrote telling him that his widow would get the full additional pension even if he died after she was aged 55, something that will not happen until the year 2004. Given that the Government have rightly insisted on the private sector compensating people who have been mis-sold private pensions, what will the Government do to compensate people such as Captain Mongor—there may be millions of them—who have been given false information by the Department about what would happen to their widows and the additional pensions that their widows are due to get?

This is another measure inherited from the previous Government. Many people knew about the change and made plans accordingly, but it is the case that Department of Social Security leaflets were not updated until 1996. We are investigating why that was so. I can tell the House that we shall consider a claim for compensation from anyone who can establish that he or she received advice that did not reflect the change from April 2000 and, as a result, acted to their detriment. We shall be announcing further details shortly.

One promise in "New Contract for Welfare", is that

"people can have greater confidence that they will get proper protection in return for the contributions they make."

How does my hon. Friend square that with the proposals to strip out coverage for widows benefits, even though many people have paid 30 years' contributions for that cover?

The coverage is being extended to widowers. It will be a new contributory benefit for widowers. Those with children will continue to receive non-means-tested help until the youngest child for whom they are responsible ceases full-time education. The income support safety net will be in place for those who are older than 55 when the measures are introduced and who are widowed in the following five years. We are concentrating help—I think that my right hon. Friend will support this—on those who at the time need it most.

Further to the highly pertinent inquiry from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), how does the Minister seriously expect to eradicate the something-for-nothing culture if he continues to pursue his reform of widows pensions in such a way as completely to undermine the contributory principle and to leave worse off no fewer than 250,000 women the length and breadth of the United Kingdom?

I have made the point that there is a new contributory benefit for widowers. There has been no such measure before; we are introducing one. It is time-limited, but not means-tested. All widows will receive non-means-tested benefit for six months to help during the transition, and those with children will continue to receive non-means-tested help until the youngest child ceases full-time education. We are modernising the system. Now, seven in 10 married women are in work. When the original system was introduced, the proportion was very much lower. We must change the system to reflect the changing times in which we live.

Can my hon. Friend confirm that, for the first time, widows and widowers will get comprehensive assistance via the single gateway and special advisers to help them through the maze of the benefit system? Will my hon. Friend comment on a second issue: if it is so crucial to the Liberals that recently bereaved widows are looked after, why is there no provision for that in their Budget, which was issued this morning?

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I looked carefully through the documents issued this morning by the Liberal Democrats to see whether the matter was dealt with there. My hon. Friend is right—it is not. He is also right about the extra help that we are making available through the single work-focused gateway. That is an extremely important change, which will help many thousands of people. It is important for the House to know, too, that we are doubling the lump sum that will be payable to both widows and widowers on bereavement.

If he will make a statement on the progress of the new deal for lone parents. [73041]

The new deal for lone parents is providing active support to help lone parents to move into work. As of 29 January, more than 163,000 initial letters have been issued; more than 39,000 lone parents have attended interviews and, of those, 32,000 have agreed to participate in the programme; and more than 6,000 jobs have been obtained by lone parents.

I thank the Minister for that interesting response. On 29 April last year, when the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) appeared before the Select Committee on Education and Employment, some 6 per cent. of those who received letters were finding work. The right hon. Lady told me on that occasion that the number was increasing exponentially. I understand from the latest figures that 3.8 per cent. of those receiving letters are finding work. Perhaps the right hon. Lady meant that the number was decreasing exponentially. In any case, do not the figures demonstrate that the scheme is a £200 million failure that needs urgent review?

No. The hon. Gentleman has been doing rather odd mathematics. Why divide the number of letters issued by the number of jobs obtained? That seems a meaningless calculation. The fact is that the Government are doing something to help lone parents to get back into work. The previous Government did nothing but scapegoat them.

Does the Minister share the concern of a number of organisations that represent single parents about the proposal in the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill that single parents should be subjected to a series of compulsory interviews? Does she agree that it is no business of a Labour Government to imply or suggest that the only way for mothers with children under five to improve their lot is to go out to work?

I do not share that concern, because I think that it is based on a misunderstanding of the single work focus gateway proposals. No mother of children under five would be made to attend an interview unless she were applying for extra benefits. The idea of the interview is to assist her in getting into work or becoming more employable for when she decides that it is right for her to take up work. There will be no compulsion to act, or to look for a job, as a result of the interview. We hope that the interviews will help the 1.8 million children who are being raised on income support in poverty, and will assist the 1.6 million lone parents to improve their lot, enabling them to look after their children and move off benefit into work, so that they can give their children much better chances in life.

If the calculation is as meaningless as the Minister suggests, she should understand that it is the Government's calculation. What is meaningless is the amount of wasted money that has gone on the scheme—£200 million, which is a cost of £15,000 a job. The simple truth is that those who wanted to get a job have got one, which is why the figure has gone down from 7 to 3.8 per cent. Does she understand that the only reason why this flagship policy has not sunk without trace is that there has never been sufficient water under it to allow it to float?

One of the largest causes of poverty among our children—something that surely concerns the hon. Gentleman—is the fact that 60 per cent. of lone parent households are workless. We are trying to tackle the problem of workless households by giving lone parents the chance to get back into work so that they can provide for their children at much higher levels of income than income support could ever give them. That is what we are doing; the Tory record is one of total neglect and scapegoating.

We are trying to do something to get lone parents back into work. The new deal for lone parents will be properly assessed in the autumn and there will be an independent assessment of how it is working. We shall look at how it is doing then. I do not like taking lectures from a member of a party that, when it was in office, did absolutely nothing but condemn lone parents to a lifetime on benefit.

I call Mr. Brazier.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The answer to the—I am sorry, Question 5.

If he will make a statement on progress towards introduction of the single gateway to benefit. [73042]

A seamless move from Question 4 to Question 5. Our plans for the introduction of the single work-focused gateway are on course.

The answer to an earlier question established that the voluntary principle is doing nothing to the new deal. What is the point in introducing compulsory gateway interviews for single parents and other categories of people who are not compulsorily required to take a job? Is the whole mass of exemptions under clause 47 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill a sign that the Government are starting to change their mind? How much will it all cost?

I wish that Conservative Members would not dismiss as nothing the 39,000 lone parents who have had an interview so far and nearly 30,000 people who have joined the new deal for lone parents, let alone the 6,262 lone parents who are in work as a result of the new deal. The idea of the single work-focused gateway is to give individual, tailored help to people who may have been away from the labour market for a long time and to give them a strategic direction so that they can plan, when their children are old enough, to get back into the labour market and support themselves and their children.

On Friday, I visited a project in Burnt Oak in my constituency, which is run by Hendon college and involves working with the older age group of unemployed people. One of the big complaints that came through to me from the clients and the staff at the project was the lack of a gateway for the older age group. Will my hon. Friend the Minister take that on board and make sure that we do the best that we possibly can for people in the older age group—they face all sorts of barriers, including age discrimination—and start to broaden the gateway?

My hon. Friend correctly identifies the fact that people appreciate having a personal adviser and individualised help in a confusing system of benefits and a difficult and fast-changing labour market. That is something that we have learned from the new deal, and we are anxious to extend it to the benefits system, where it will be widely welcomed.

Is not the reality that the Government are in a complete mess over their programme—[HON. MEMBERS:"Oh!"] They do not like it, but we have a gateway programme and the Bill is going through Parliament, although the Government still do not understand or admit how much that will cost. They set no targets for the increase in the number of jobs that they want to achieve. There are 1 million lone parents on income support, but there is no comment about how many of them the Government expect to get into work. We have heard about the £200 million cost of the new deal for lone parents, which is wasted, and that 3.8 per cent. of lone parents get into work, although nearly one fifth of them fall away from work after six months. Must not the Government now accept that they have no joined-up thinking in that regard? They have two programmes aimed at two groups, and they are failing. It is the Government who are doing nothing: they raise expectations, and then dash them by failing.

The single work-focused gateway is a pilot scheme. In fact, there will be 12 pilot schemes, to enable us to learn how best—

Make it up as you go along.

We are not making it up as we go along; we are ensuring that the changes that we are to make will work, and can be properly costed and planned. That is responsible government.

The hon. Gentleman needs to understand this. We believe that benefit claimants, as well as those who have been unemployed and are taking advantage of the new deal, will find personal adviser interviews and individualised assistance beneficial. As I have said, the single work-focused gateway involves pilot schemes, which will take place in 12 different areas over the next two or three years, and we have set aside £80 million for the purpose. We will evaluate and assess the pilot schemes, and will then be able to tell the House how we can transform our benefit system into an active system that will help individuals, rather than just doling out money and leaving them floundering.

If he will make a statement on the review of the savings allowance in relation to the minimum pension guarantee. [73043]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the introduction of a minimum pension guarantee on low earners' savings. [73048]

We made clear in the pensions Green Paper that we want to look at options for changing the rules on the treatment of voluntary saving better to reward those who have saved for their retirement.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. I fully support the Government's policy of aiming support at the poorest pensioners in the initial stages of the current Parliament, and decry the selective amnesia of the Opposition. A huge expansion of means-tested benefits took place when they were in power; now, they have suddenly discovered that they have problems with that.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a problem for pensioners with relatively few savings who feel that they have played by the rules, but who are now finding that those relatively small sums disbar them from additional state support? May I strongly urge the Government to take that factor into account in the review?

My hon. Friend has made two good points. First, I think that we all take with a pinch of salt some of what is now being said by the Conservative party, and what will be said in the "kitchen table" talks that it is introducing. Secondly, I have made it clear on a number of occasions that we need to ensure that someone who has saved, and has a modest amount of capital or income, will not be penalised on that account. As we made clear in the pensions Green Paper, we are determined to act.

Given the Secretary of State's acceptance that the introduction of a minimum pension guarantee will lead to a distinct disincentive for those earning below the average to save, and given that it will lead to a massive increase in means-testing and more dependency on the state, will the right hon. Gentleman have a quiet word with the Chancellor in the next 24 hours, to ensure that he addresses those very real problems?

I think that the hon. Gentleman was a Whip during much of the last Government, and he did nothing about the problems about which he now complains.

We recognise that there is a problem for pensioners with income and capital, and we are therefore determined to do something about it. In regard to the minimum income guarantee, we—unlike the Conservative party— recognise that there are many pensioners who are poor, and who need immediate help. The guarantee means that we are giving to the poorest pensioners real help, which many of them greatly appreciate and which, sadly, many of them greatly need.

I restate my support for the Government's decision to link the minimum income guarantee to earnings. However, does the Secretary of State accept that an anomaly is being created? The overall aim of the policy is to ensure that people reach retirement age with an income above the minimum income guarantee level, but, in written answers to me, he has suggested that they will be below that level within five years of retirement. As the guarantee rises in line with earnings, and all other pension incomes rise in line with prices, people could slip back down later in their retirement. Is the right hon. Gentleman concerned about that, and does he plan to do something about it?

I appreciate the fact that the hon. Gentleman—I assume that he speaks for the whole Liberal Democrat party on the issue—[Interruption.] Obviously not. I appreciate what he said. Most sensible commentators, and he is clearly one, recognise the value of linking the minimum income guarantee to earnings.

On the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, our object is to ensure that, during their lifetime, people save as much as they possibly can, so that they do not have to rely on income-related benefit. With people living longer— sometimes for 20 or 30 years after retirement—that means that there has to be substantial saving. One of the things that we are doing that will help people who can save but do not, is to ensure that they receive an annual pension statement, which will concentrate some people's minds in a way that has not happened.

Only this morning, before coming to the House, I met a group of pensioners in Croydon. The main issue that they raised was the perceived unfairness of the position of those people who, for either income or capital reasons, were just above the means-tested income support level.

One elderly woman, a widow, said that she had put aside savings so that she could do repairs to her home, if those were necessary. Because of those savings, she was debarred from income support. I welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about the savings trap and our need to spring it. It cannot be right that those who are the most responsible and thrifty among the elderly population are penalised, rather than supported.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. Without wishing to labour the point, let me say that the Government are considering how best to deal with that matter. The problem of people who are nearly poor is one that has concerned many of us for some considerable time, but I emphasise that, given the situation that we inherited, where there were many extremely poor pensioners, to do something quickly to help those most in need, it was necessary to introduce the minimum income guarantee, as well as the other measures that we have taken: free eye tests for pensioners, concessionary travel, winter fuel payments and so on. Taken together, those measures are a significant boost for pensioners, but I take the point that my hon. Friend makes.

Is it not a fact that the Secretary of State has put pensioners in an expensive mess? The very fact that he has to look at the savings trap shows that the Government blundered into the whole business of the minimum income guarantee without thinking through the effects of what they were about to do. It will lead to increasing dependency.

Let the Secretary of State ask himself what the Government have done for pensioners. When they first came in, they taxed £5 billion a year off pension holders, which means that pensioners will be up to 15 per cent. worse off on their incomes after retirement. Not only is the budget rising by £37 billion a year, but the Government's response to that is to increase dependency through the minimum income guarantee, increase the cost further and so increase the overall cost of welfare.

The Prime Minister promised to cut the cost and the Secretary of State is raising it. We have heard of dumbing down, but surely that is dumb government.

Discussion over the breakfast table in the household must be absolutely fascinating.

The Conservatives have to face up to two points. First, the income and capital rules have been there for some considerable time. In fact, they were there during the whole time that the Conservatives were in office, and they did nothing about them.

Secondly, if we had not changed the way in which pension provision is made for the future, one person in three who is now working would rely on income-related benefits—in other words, the means test that the hon. Gentleman complains about. What we have done is to ensure that, where people work throughout their life, they are rewarded by not having to rely on income-related benefits when they retire.

The minimum income guarantee was introduced to tackle a real problem: there are far too many poor pensioners.[Interruption.] One would think that the Conservative party—I know that Conservative Members have been told this in their new presentation—had arrived on the planet only last week. They were not only on the planet; they were in government for 18 years, during which time they did nothing for poorer pensioners.

I am more than happy to be judged on the fact that I am part of a Government who introduced the minimum income guarantee, reduced VAT on fuel, introduced free eye tests for pensioners and extended concessionary travel. The present Government are determined to do far more for pensioners—for whom the Conservative party did absolutely nothing.

What plans he has to reform the administration of the CSA. [73044]

The Green Paper published last year stated our proposals for radical reform of the discredited child support system. We also made it clear that we would be expecting the Child Support Agency to make substantial improvements before the reforms took effect. Considerable progress has already been made. Planned changes for the coming year include a much improved face-to-face service; simplification of the decision-making and appeals process; introduction of improved arrangements for dealing with the self-employed; and clearer and simpler communication.

I welcome the Minister's reply. Does she agree with two main points on the CSA? First, since the agency was established six years ago, it has done nothing to slow the break-up of families, or the relentless rise in lone parenthood and school-age pregnancies—the three major by-products of the Conservative era. Secondly, perhaps the agency's greatest failure is the fact that the proportion of lone parents on benefit who receive maintenance from absent fathers is now no higher than it was in 1993.

I welcome the report in today's newspapers about lone parents on low incomes and in work keeping more of their child maintenance. Will the Government consider extending those arrangement to unemployed single mothers—they should be able to keep as much of their child maintenance as is equivalent to child benefit—and ring-fencing that maintenance in detachment of earnings orders, so that fathers understand that some of their money is going directly to their children and not to the Treasury?

Although my hon. Friend is right about the proportion of parents with care who are currently receiving maintenance, he must also understand that there has been a 60 per cent. increase in case load. We are expecting the case load for the CSA to pass the 1 million mark before the end of the year. Although it is much more effective than it was, it is saddled with a very difficult system of child maintenance assessment, which we are in the middle-via our Green Paper—of attempting to simplify. We shall, in due course, be introducing those changes.

I also thank my hon. Friend for noticing the announcements on a 100 per cent disregard for women lone parents who are receiving working families tax credit. The disregard should provide them with a huge incentive to go into work. I hope that my hon. Friend will also recognise that there is a £10 disregard for parents with care who are on benefit. Therefore, absent fathers can see that some of their maintenance money is going for the upkeep of their children.

Will the hon. Lady accept from me that improvements in how the CSA works are greatly to be welcomed? However, will she also agree that part of the problem for all our constituents is the inconsistency in the service that they receive from the CSA? Although the training programmes that have been established are undoubtedly yielding great benefits, will she talk to the head of the CSA to determine what can be done to achieve, through training, greater and more skilful communication with our constituents—who often have to ring up and deal with the CSA while under great stress?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that child maintenance is a very delicate, difficult and complex issue, and welcome his acknowledgement that the CSA is making strides in how it deals with the issue, particularly through greater telephone contact. We are just completing assessments of pilots on joint Benefits Agency-CSA work, which relies on tele-claiming. We have also allocated £12 million extra to improve the direct client service this year. Those improvements are now showing results.

As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), however, the CSA has a very difficult task in attempting to assess child maintenance using the very complex formula established in primary legislation. I do not believe that we shall make any real breakthrough until we have managed to change the formula, for which we shall require primary legislation.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the proposals in the Green Paper will cut off the dozens of escape routes in information flow that are exercised by absent parents and that proposals will also be made to alter dramatically the ratio of staff time spent on chasing that information to time spent on collection?

Yes. I believe that with a simpler assessment process the CSA will be able to change the current situation—90 per cent. of time spent on assessing maintenance and only 10 per cent. of time spent collecting it—to a more healthy state of affairs.

What plans he has for increasing assistance to older pensioners. [73045]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The minimum income guarantee is being set at a higher level for older pensioners. It will be £75 a week for a single pensioner just above retirement age, but £77.30 a week for a single pensioner aged 75 to 79 and £82.25 a week for a pensioner aged 80 or over.

That is welcome. However, what would the Minister say to pensioners over 75 throughout the country who do not want to go through the means-testing process, those who cannot do so and those who discover that their small life savings or a small occupational pension would result in them getting no minimum income guarantee top-up, leaving them with no additional basic state pension? There is not a single paragraph in the Green Paper on older pensioners' entitlements. Does that mean that the Government have excluded once and for all increasing the basic state pension for older pensioners and are going to leave them with the 25p for the over 80s, which they regard as a simple insult?

I am aware of the proposals in the document produced this morning by the Liberal Democrats for higher rates of state pension for older pensioners. That would be an expensive measure that would provide no help to older pensioners already on income support, which cannot be right. We acknowledged in our election manifesto that there was a problem with the number of people who claim the minimum income guarantee. We have carried out pilot projects trying out ways to encourage benefit take-up among pensioners. When the evaluation is complete we shall learn the lessons for encouraging wider take-up. It is right to concentrate extra help on those who need it most.

Is my hon. Friend aware that my constituents die sooner than those who live in the more salubrious suburbs of Glasgow? Does he accept that there is a strong connection between prosperity and longevity? It would be unfair for money to be targeted on those who happen to live longer. Does he accept that it is essential that those who are in need receive money and that the Government's targeting process of giving more money to those in need is a far fairer way of distributing the money available?

I agree with my hon. Friend. Even the least well-off pensioners should share in rising national prosperity. That is why it is right to aim to link the level of the minimum income guarantee with average earnings. I welcome the fact that the Liberal Democrats have endorsed that policy today.

What representations he has received about the minimum guaranteed pension. [73046]

We have received a number of items of correspondence about the minimum income guarantee, including some responses to our proposals for pension reform, which I published last December.

Will the right hon. Gentleman admit that his minimum pension guarantee is nothing of the sort? Some 600,000 pensioners in this country with a weekly income of less than £75 will not receive a top-up because they have been prudent enough to save during their working life.

Listening to the Conservatives this afternoon, I assume that they would get rid of the minimum income guarantee, which would be a great pity. We are ensuring that a single pensioner will get £75 a week and a married couple will get £116.60. That is far more than they would ever have received relying on earnings-related benefits. The hon. Gentleman must recognise that in his constituency and throughout the country, one of the problems that we, as a civilised society, have to face is that far too many pensioners have nothing. We were determined to end that scandal.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that during the 18 years that I sat on the Opposition Benches, I never heard a single complaint from Conservative Members about means-testing? What we are hearing today is unique for Labour Members who have served in Parliament for quite a time.

Having said that, does my right hon. Friend accept that much needs to be done for pensioners who, in some cases, are just above the income support level? They are having tremendous difficulties and I believe that their complaints have much justification. I hope that the Budget will offer help to those people, who are being punished—as they were under the Conservatives—for being poor, but who are just above the level described by my right hon. Friend.

As I have made clear, I am aware of the problems of people with modest incomes and capital, to which my hon. Friend has referred. He is also right on another point: the Conservatives were quiet about means-testing for the 18 years before 1997 because they doubled the incidence of it.

If he will make a statement on his plans for war disablement pensions. [73047]

I would like to pay tribute to all those members of the armed forces who have been disabled or whose partners have been bereaved as a result of their service. It is only because of their courage and sacrifice that Members of this House have the democratic liberty to stand for election, and freedom of speech when we get here. We will ensure that the war pensions scheme remains available to them and to future generations of service personnel.

Just before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition described the Conservative Government's policy on disablement pensions for those suffering from deafness as shabby and mean-minded. We now learn from a press release—issued eight days after this question was tabled—that the present Government have no plans to change that policy in respect of deafness on medical grounds. Is that because the Government, too, now regard themselves as shabby and mean-minded, or is it a vindication of the policy of the previous Government? Is it not truly shabby and mean-minded to raise false hopes among war veterans a few months before an election, and then to take two years to come to grips with the facts, during which time many of those veterans— including some constituents of mine—have been waiting for their appeals to be heard?

When in opposition, we pledged to undertake a review of the changes introduced by the Conservatives to the war pensions scheme. That review took place immediately after the election, and was timely.

And?

I can tell the Opposition spokesman that that review came up with two conclusions. First, that the deafness attributable to war service and the deafness later in life attributable to ageing was no more than additive. Secondly, it was decided that a further review would take place within a year. The further review was delivered to the Department 10 days ago, and we made its results available to the House last Tuesday.

My hon. Friend rightly paid tribute to the sacrifice made during the war by many

people who fought for democracy and freedom in Europe. Does he recognise that many of those people, for various reasons, failed to make early claims to get the pensions to which they were entitled? Is he aware that the Royal British Legion and many other organisations are fighting for those people, who are getting older? Many veterans and their widows die before their cases are heard. Will he do everything possible to expedite these cases to ensure that people get the payments to which they are entitled as speedily as possible?

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There has been a serious backlog in appeals for war pensions. On 31 March 1997, there were 9,619 appeals outstanding. By April last year, we had managed to reduce that to just over 5,000. At that stage, we introduced a number of additional measures to speed up the hearing of war pensions appeals. As of 28 February 1999—the date on which the latest figure was available—the total was 2,917. We recognise that, although much lower than the figure that we inherited, that is still too many. The War Pensions Agency has commissioned Ernst and Young to undertake a review of the overall decision-making and appeals process, and we will announce the outcome when the review is completed.

I am sure that all hon. Members greatly respect those who have been disabled as a result of service in the armed forces. Is the Minister aware that many people—including, for example, members of the British Legion—feel aggrieved because their pensions are at nowhere near the levels paid in other European countries? Is a review being conducted of the level of pensions?

The payments under our war pensions scheme are considerably more generous than those in other parts of our social security system. For instance, a single man who is severely disabled and is in the war pensions scheme will receive just over £400 a week, which is substantially more than would be paid under the industrial injuries arrangements, and substantially more— more than twice as much—than what would be paid in basic non-income-related state benefits. We believe that the scheme is generous and that its generosity must be maintained, because those who are injured as a result of service to our country should be generously rewarded.

If he will make a statement on the savings achieved as a result of the benefit integrity project. [73049]

The most recent estimate of benefit savings from the benefit integrity project is £8 million for 1997–98 and £30 million for 1998–99. A further estimate of the savings will be calculated following the cessation of the scheme at the end of March.

Does the Minister expect the replacement system for BIP to result in more or less savings?

We are not setting out on the scheme simply to make savings. We want to introduce a fairer system that will allow people on disability living allowance to have their award increased when their mobility or care needs increase, as well as allowing decreases when needs decrease. The benefit integrity project, which we inherited from our predecessors, was unfair because, in effect, it allowed only reductions. Our scheme will allow appropriate adjustments up or down.

As the Minister has just admitted, the benefit integrity project achieved relatively little savings and caused untold anxiety and hardship for many disabled people. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who started it?"] The scheme was operated for nearly two years by the Labour Government, regardless of all the complaints from hon. Members of all parties asking the Government to suspend it. Will the Minister confirm that the replacement scheme, the periodic review system, will lead to more reviews, affecting more disabled people; that the decision-making process will be the same as for the benefit integrity project; and that, if the new review process also leads to anxiety and hardship among disabled people, he will stop it, regardless of the saving?

I find it quite extraordinary that the hon. Lady should make such a broadside attack on a change to the benefits system that her party introduced. We acknowledge that the system was flawed, and that is why we have changed it. The scheme saved £30 million in 1998–99, which she described as relatively little savings. That is in stark contrast to statements from other Conservative Front Benchers about the need to get the level of payments of all benefits right, which is what we intend to do.

When we introduce the new system, which we are developing in consultation with the voluntary bodies, we will do so slowly and carefully, and ensure that it beds down well. If the Conservatives had developed their scheme, the benefit integrity project, in consultation with the voluntary bodies representing disabled people, we might not have had so many problems with it.

May I congratulate the Benefits Agency on its sting operation over the weekend in Portsmouth, in which it targeted people returning from abroad who claim disability benefits but who had full sets of tools in their possession? They are now being investigated for fraud. Does my hon. Friend agree that every pound taken through fraud is stealing from the people who need it most?

My hon. Friend could not be more right, and it is disgraceful that people make false claims for benefits. It is good that he should congratulate the Benefits Agency on its successful work to ensure that benefits are paid to those entitled to them, and it shows that the agency is doing its job.

What he is doing to improve the living standards of the poorest disabled people. [73050]

Our proposals for a new disability income guarantee, together with measures in the Welfare Reform Bill, will provide more help for disabled adults and children who most need it, to enable them to live independently and with dignity.

Does my hon. Friend agree that some people will never be able to work, because of the nature of their disability? In view of that, does he also agree that the minimum income guarantee should be updated regularly and will he undertake to do that?

Yes. The Government's policy is work for those who are able to work and security through the benefits system for those who are unable to work. We recognise that work will never be an option for many people on disability benefits and we must ensure that the poorest of those get more support, which is what the minimum income guarantee seeks to achieve. At current prices, when it is introduced it will add £5.75 a week to the basic disability premium and £8.30 a week for couples.

Will penalties be imposed on those disabled people who fail to turn up for interview? Will they lose their benefits, and if so, for how long?

The proposals for attending a single gateway interview are before the House as part of the Welfare Reform Bill and they will be discussed in Committee. It is the Government's view that it should be a requirement for disabled people, as for others entering the single gateway, to attend an interview. Claimants are already required to do certain things before they are entitled to their money—for example, to fill in the application forms appropriately—and we believe that it makes sense for them to attend an interview. However, for disabled people, there will be no requirement to seek work or take a job if that is not appropriate given their condition.

What plans he has to abolish the vesting requirements on annuities. [73051]

There are no such plans. The Inland Revenue rules require that personal pension and money purchase occupational pension funds must be used to buy an annuity at retirement. The exception is when a personal pension fund is used for income draw-down whereby income is drawn directly from the fund. Although that means that annuity purchase is deferred, an annuity must be purchased by the age of 75.

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. However, annuity rates are at a historical low. The Government should be congratulated on their economic policies, which have brought an end to the boom and bust of the Tory years, but those policies will ensure a continued climate of low returns—although current pensioners should not be discouraged from taking annuities. Is there a case for examining whether the age for vesting in annuities should be extended beyond 75, or for reconsidering easing the draw-down facilities and making the process easier for those over 75?

I recognise that many people have been disappointed by the fall in annuity rates, but they have enjoyed the benefits of substantial stock market growth so their funds are bigger than might once have been expected. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the Government's success in managing the economy and that can be expected to continue. Inflation is lower and stable so that annuities keep their value better. My hon. Friend is an acknowledged expert on these matters and I am always interested in her ideas, but I cannot see a practical alternative to the present framework. Life offices which provide annuities have a good record of reliability, which is an important point in favour of the existing system.

Will the Minister accept that there is widespread pressure to abolish the obligation to buy an annuity at 75? In addition, will he accept that profits-linked annuities suffer from rules that discourage their usage? Given the enormous increase in the volume of money purchase pensions required, will the Government consider both the ability of the annuity industry to cope and the possibility of increasing the opportunities for draw-downs?

It is an important principle that since pensions savings are tax free, they must eventually be converted into an income stream so that tax may be paid on them. Of course, we always keep these matters under review, but, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), the present system is the only practical one available.

:Today is the 73rd international women's day—a day to mark what women do, want and achieve. In Europe, the Commission and Parliament are celebrating international women's day. Commissioner Gradin is launching a campaign to heighten public awareness about violence towards women.

Throughout the world, international women's day is being celebrated. Baroness Jay, the Minister for Women, is today in New York to attend the United Nations Commission for the Status of Women. She will take part in a debate on violence against women and join Commissioner Gradin via a video link.

What women want is a Government whose actions and priorities reflect their lives. For too many women, the political process is remote and irrelevant. That is why it is doubly important that women see evidence that the Government listen, act on what they hear and never break the link with women and families. The Government must respect the boundary between public policy and private lives, but understand that public policy can make the responsibilities of private life so much easier to handle. Governments do not bring up children; families do. Governments are able, however, to provide the framework of hope and opportunity in which families are given the very best chance of success—success for the part-time worker who is the full-time mother, for the full-time mother who is the part-time carer, and for the full-time mother.

Will the right hon. Lady acknowledge the valuable work done by local play groups? What would she say to the Bowley Park play group in Lichfield which, because of the introduction of the minimum wage, faces the difficult choice of either packing up altogether or increasing prices considerably to the young mothers who are sending their toddlers to the play group?

I should first note that about 20 per cent. of Conservative Members are in the Chamber for the debate, and that about 20 per cent. of them has just spoken. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Department for Education and Employment is examining ways in which to span the interim period until the working families tax credit takes effect.

The Government, in making things better for women, are making things better for everyone: better for women is better for all. The issues of concern to women are the issues of concern to everyone: health, education, crime, jobs and the economy. Women benefit when we spend £21 billion to improve our hospitals, spend £19 billion extra to improve our schools, take action to cut youth unemployment by 55 per cent. and enable jobs overall to grow by 400,000. Those actions benefit women, because they benefit everyone.

I am sorry to divert the right hon. Lady from the big subjects, but I should like to pursue the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). If I understood him correctly—I am fairly certain that I did—he said that staff at the pre-school play group he mentioned were currently paid less than £3.60.

indicated assent.

My hon. Friend acknowledges that that is correct. Therefore, given the Minister's answer to my hon. Friend's question, is she saying that the working families tax credit is a way of supplementing income of less than £3.60? She seemed to be saying that. I should be grateful if she will clarify the matter.

I should make three points. First, I reiterate that the Department for Education and Employment is closely examining the circumstances in which play groups may find it difficult to manage with the introduction of the minimum wage. Secondly, I make it clear that the working families tax credit will be a benefit available to couples earning up to £23,000 annually. Thirdly, the important point—which is always ignored by Opposition Members—is that the minimum wage, which the Government are introducing, will free from poverty pay about 1.3 million women in the United Kingdom. We are proud of that.

I shall outline the changes that are being made in women's lives, beginning with children. Recent opinion polls have made it clear that more than one third of women think that education is the most important issue facing Britain today. The Government have pledged—in addition to the extra £2.4 billion aimed at raising school standards—£19 billion to education in the next three years. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced last week, by 2002, and probably earlier, class sizes for children under seven will be cut to no more than 30. Already, more than 100,000 children are in smaller infant classes. Those children will be able to learn better because they are in smaller classes.

Since September 1998, every four-year-old in England has had access to free good-quality, part-time, preschool education. Moreover, we have allocated almost £400 million more to increase the proportion of three-year-olds receiving free pre-school education—from one in three to almost two thirds—by January 2002.

The Minister is lauding the Government's action on nursery education. Does she accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), that as a result of the Government's policy on the minimum wage, many pre-schools may have to close? That will reduce opportunities for women and take away the chance of early years education for many children. It is hardly an example of the joined-up government that the Government keep saying that they are so proud of.

Once again, I assure the hon. Lady that the Government are determined to ensure stability in the provision for very young children. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment is making arrangements on that.

The aim of our sure start programme is to fill the gaps in local services for children from birth to age four, and to promote opportunity in areas of disadvantage. We recognise that we can improve the health of new babies by improving the health of mothers during pregnancy. Some 250 programmes will be funded by the end of this Parliament. We have invested £452 million in England alone and a total of £540 million will be invested nationwide over the next three years. We are not prepared to allow children's opportunities to be set on the day that they are born. Sure start is about creating opportunities for the poorest families by offering opportunities for all. In a few weeks, we shall see the biggest ever increase in child benefit. That is real delivery, real action and real progress.

Our second area of concern in the life cycle of women is teenage girls. By adolescence, the issues that face girls and boys can be very different. The effects of the choices that girls face during their teens can last for the rest of their lives. The issues that young women face today are significantly different from those of a generation ago. Britain has the highest rate of teenage motherhood in western Europe. By the age of 15, one in three young women smoke regularly, compared with one in four boys. The number of young women drinking more than 14 units of alcohol a week, which is more than is good for them, has increased over the past 10 years.

Will the Minister give way?

I should like to make some progress first, but I am prepared to take interventions later.

Girls tend to outperform boys throughout their school years, but many lose confidence and self-esteem in their teenage years. We need changing actions and new ways of thinking to deal with new difficulties and new problems. That means looking across Government for solutions. We must take note of the evidence that the education of mothers is the most important predictor of the educational achievement of their daughters.

The social exclusion unit is studying teenage pregnancies. It has undertaken the largest ever consultation exercise and will report its findings shortly. The women's unit is looking at what happens to girls during their teenage years that, too often, prevents them from meeting earlier aspirations and achievements. It is looking at the extent of gender stereotyping, which drives girls into particular careers. It is also studying the growing concern about the risk behaviour that teenage girls are increasingly engaging in—behaviour that may compromise their health for the rest of their lives.

No one story can be told about the lives of mothers in Britain today, because women's lives are changing faster than ever before. Some 25 years ago, only one in four mothers with children under five were in paid employment. Now the figure is nearly half. Nearly eight out of 10 of all mothers are in paid work. Overwhelmingly, mothers want to work because work brings a sense of value, income and independence. Nearly seven out of 10 women—the same proportion as men— say that they would rather work, even if they could afford not to. However, many would prefer to work for shorter hours.

When children are young and dependent, there must be a choice—a real choice. The Government have made sure that support is there, whichever course the mother chooses. The child care tax credit will fund the first £70 of child care costs for eligible mothers, and £105 for two or more children. The working families tax credit will make it easier for couples on low incomes to cope if one parent—invariably the mother—decides to stay at home when the children are very small. The choice no longer lies between underwork and overwork. Governments can help women to balance their lives, but these are private choices. They can be choices because we have listened to women.

The Government have taken an important step in improving the lot of families, with the biggest-ever increase in child benefit coming up. That will be in addition to the increase for every family with children on income support. Practical action by the Government will transform the lives of women in paid work.

From April, the national minimum wage will take effect. It will tackle exploitation and ensure greater fairness in the workplace. Nearly 2 million workers will benefit from the minimum wage, around two thirds of whom are women—1.3 million women. The working families tax credit—together with the minimum wage— will guarantee low-paid families with a full-time worker a minimum income of £190 a week, with no tax to pay on incomes below £220.

There is still a huge disparity between women's and men's incomes; the earnings gap is still there, and still wide. When men enter employment, their earnings, on average, tend to rise steadily to a peak, suggesting that their earnings reflect their increasing skills and experience—as well as the jobs that they enter. Women's earnings reach only a much lower point, and then gradually taper away.

We will make clear just how stark the gap is when we publish a new document on the gender gap in the pay packet shortly. Further work will provide us with valuable tools to build on existing measures, such as the national minimum wage, to identify correctly the nature and extent of the pay gap, to enable women to better balance taking paid work with family commitments, and to improve women's incomes in retirement.

The most important issue for women at work in terms of being able to balance the responsibilities of home and work is family-friendly employment. The Employment Relations Bill, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, makes a good start at levelling off the unequal playing field by extending maternity leave to 18 weeks, creating a right to parental leave and creating a right to time off to deal with an emergency in the family.

As they grow older, many women become carers; some 60 per cent. of our 6 million carers are women. It is a tough and vital role—a role that has been disgracefully ignored for too many years in this country. Our national carers strategy, published some weeks ago, has three key elements. The strategy will provide information for carers, speaking to the carer who says, "The problem is not just that I do not know what I am entitled to, but that I do not know what question to ask to find out what I am entitled to."

The strategy will speak to carers' need for greater and more flexible support. It will also provide care for carers. Evidence shows clearly that, too often, elderly people are admitted to residential care not because their own health fails, but because the health of their carer has failed.

We have listened to carers and acted on what we have heard, providing £140 million over the next three years to ensure that carers get the break that they need. We are also holding consultations on proposals that time spent caring will entitle carers to a second pension: a pension that by 2050—albeit that is some way off—will be worth up to £50 a week in today's terms, payable on top of the basic state retirement pension.

We are also dealing with the issues that affect older people; we should celebrate older people. Longer life expectancy means that the majority of older people are women, but longer life, sadly, does not necessarily mean longer, healthier life. The baby girl born today can expect to live until she is 80, but she can expect only 61 of those years to be free from any chronic illness or life-limiting disability. That is why one of our top priorities for improving people's health is to extend the number of years for which they enjoy fit, active and healthy life.

I was reminded of the consequences of failing to do that by a cartoon that I saw recently, showing two old ladies in the bleak austerity of a home for the elderly. They were wrapped in blankets and there was absolutely no sign of pleasure around them. One was saying to the other, "Just imagine, Mavis. I gave up smoking for this." The challenge is huge. Our better government for older people programme will have an impact on several fronts: for example, by improving the services that older people use and tackling in practical ways the issues of concern to older people.

We already know that pensions are a key concern for older people. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has introduced the Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill, which contains important proposals for helping women in retirement. For the first time, divorcing women will be able to obtain a share of their former husband's pension rights, recognising the contribution that they have made to the financial well-being of the family. The new stakeholder pensions will help people who, until now, have been unable to make pensions provision through an occupational scheme or personal pension.

There are other issues of concern to women: tough issues such as violence against women. Violence, and the fear of violence, can haunt women throughout their live: year in, year out, thousands of children witness cruelty and violence to their mothers; one in four women experience domestic violence at some time in their lives; every week, two women die as a result of violence in the home; and 46 per cent. of women over 60 hardly ever go out at night, because they feel unsafe.

Those are stark and unpalatable facts. We cannot achieve a fair and equal society as long as women are not safe in their own homes—for too many women, home is the most dangerous place—and as long as women are afraid to go out at night or cannot raise their children in safety. That is why tackling crime is a top priority for the Government.

My noble Friend the Minister for Women and I will publish later in the spring a document setting out good practice in protecting women from all forms of violence, with local initiatives to spur local action to make women safer. My noble Friend and I are travelling the country as part of a process called "Listening to Women". From Bristol to Birmingham and from Newcastle to Norwich, in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland, we are ensuring that action by this Government is rooted in the real lives of real women.

I wish to raise with my right hon. Friend a tough issue that I have raised with her several times before. I am sure that she will agree that the most important development in many women's lives is having a child. She knows of my constituent who has been refused in vitro fertilisation treatment by the health authority because her husband has a child by a previous marriage. That decision is an outrage and an intrusion on my constituent's civil rights. In this day and age, it is intolerable that a health authority feels it has the right to act in that way under a Labour Government, whose Ministers do not agree with it. Does my right hon. Friend have any news about that issue, because my constituent's husband came to my surgery in Workington on Saturday and told me that his wife was very distressed? Something must be done, because the situation is intolerable.

I thank my hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to the sheer diligence and commitment that he has shown to his constituent who faces a dreadfully distressing situation, in which I have taken a close personal interest. As he will know, we are considering several aspects of our policy on infertility. We are determined to get rid of what is no more than a geographical lottery and to ensure that treatment for infertility is based on the best available evidence. We are determined to ensure consistency, guided by the best clinical evidence, in the criteria used by health authorities to determine eligibility for fertility treatment. We are also determined that when couples are first referred for fertility treatment, they are given a proper assessment of the likelihood that it will be successful. It is heartbreaking for couples to persevere with fertility treatment, for reasons that every woman in the House will understand, when the clinical likelihood of a pregnancy is remote. I will remain closely in touch with my hon. Friend about the matter, and I am happy to meet him and his constituent to discuss the action that the Government are taking to create greater fairness in access to treatment for infertility.

Earlier today, I spoke to women representing more than 100 non-governmental organisations. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to them and to thank them for their tireless efforts on behalf of thousands of women. My right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), the Scottish Office Minister with responsibility for women's issues, has responded on behalf of the Government this afternoon to a debate in the Scottish Grand Committee. The Scottish Parliament will be well placed to advance the interests of Scottish women.

Since our election, the Government have been committed to listening to, and acting on what we hear from, women. However, women still feel that their voices are not heard. They still feel under-represented. Let us look at the House of Commons. In the previous Parliament, there were more Members called John than there were women Members. In the current Parliament, we have done much better on my side of the House.

I welcome the contemplated tour to listen to women, but I encourage my right hon. Friend to consider including Liverpool in her round of visits. She may know that that great city is the founding home of the women's refuge movement and the citizens advice bureau. A great collective of people in Liverpool—men and women—have a great vested interest in promoting women.

I should like to draw to my right hon. Friend's attention a sad fact that afflicts many women in my profession of engineering. Recently, the Women's Engineering Society has undergone a survey of the professional women who are its members. We wanted to know what happened to women throughout their careers. It is a sad fact that 30 per cent. of women aged between 30 and—

Order. The hon. Lady must take her seat while I am on my feet. The earlier intervention by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was a trifle too long, but the current one is becoming a speech. The hon. Lady should put her question briefly and then resume her seat.

What is being done to improve the participation in work of women with a science and engineering background, given that they have to take career breaks to manage their children and for caring duties?

My hon. Friend's important question goes to the heart of the issues that we are tackling for women in relation to the importance of family-friendly employment that recognises the importance of flexibility and the opportunity to take time off, particularly when children are small. A second question, which will be picked up by the teenage girls project, is why so few women go into careers such as science and engineering. We want more girls to do so.

In the current Parliament, the Government are proud to have achieved a parliamentary Labour party in which 25 per cent. of hon. Members are women. There are 101 women out of 421 Members.

Does the right hon. Lady accept that Labour broke European Union law by introducing women-only shortlists? Women must reach the House on merit. Equal opportunities are for men and women. Party lists exclusively composed of women broke the rules.

That is a tired old argument. Let me make it absolutely clear that the industrial tribunal that considered one case decided that all-women shortlists might be in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. No definitive judgment was made, but we decided before the general election not to continue to pursue that course.

The encouraging point is that even after our decision, the glass ceiling had been broken. Many women were selected from mixed lists in what had been safe seats. We are proud of the level of representation of women that we have achieved. I do not wish to intrude into the private grief of the Opposition on that matter, but The Sunday Times yesterday blew the gaff on what goes on in the Conservative party. Before the Opposition raises concerns about Labour, they should perhaps put their own house in order.

A quarter of the Labour parliamentary party are women. However, we do not accept that that is enough, and we will continue to build a Parliament that really reflects the balance between men and women throughout the country. We must do much to achieve that.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that representation is not only an issue in this Parliament, and that in the Northern Ireland Assembly, for example, we need to ensure that there is much wider representation of women? Will she join me in congratulating women throughout the community in Northern Ireland on their work in conflict resolution, especially the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, whose members deserve our highest praise for their work towards reconciliation and peace in Northern Ireland?

I am delighted to endorse my hon. Friend's remark. I would add that we have certainly put our effort where our mouth is on ensuring equality and gender balance in both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

We need to maintain the drive across Government. We have appointed a Minister for Women at Cabinet level; and we have a Cabinet Committee on women, whose members act as ambassadors for women in their own Departments of State, driving through change. We have had remarkable success: £300 million has been allocated to child care and an extra £30 million to breast, lung and colorectal cancer services, both of which sums will be supplemented by significant lottery funding channelled through the new opportunities fund initiatives on child care, and on cancer prevention, detection, treatment and care. In addition, a further £875 million has been allocated to child benefit. The women's unit, newly set up in the Cabinet Office, acts as a task force to add value and join up the effort across Whitehall.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that women benefited five times as much as men from the previous Budget—which was hailed by the Opposition as being sexist—because women are far more likely to look after children and to live in poverty? Will she join me in calling on our right hon. Friend the Chancellor to build on that work to support women and children in poverty in tomorrow's Budget?

I shall certainly join my hon. Friend in calling for that. By this time tomorrow, we should know to what extent my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has done what he has said he hopes to do, which is to deliver a Budget for women and families.

To follow up on that point, will the right hon. Lady also urge the Chancellor to lift the personal allowance by a considerable amount, which would take millions of low-paid women out of taxation altogether?

I am sure that many such proposals have been put to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, but we shall have to contain our impatience and wait for his Budget speech tomorrow.

We need to increase women's involvement in public life and decision making more generally. We are committed to 50 per cent. representation of women in public appointments, and we have already made important progress by ensuring that nearly half of all national health service trust and health authority chairs and chief executives are women.

I understand the right hon. Lady's motivation, which is laudable, for saying that 50 per cent. of health trusts and various other committees should be made up of women, but will she give an undertaking to the House that women will be chosen according to merit, and not merely because they fill a quota?

Any such suggestion would be deeply offensive to the excellent women who have been appointed to trusts and health authorities throughout the country. We are lucky to have their services, which will help us to deliver a modern national health service to the people of this country.

We have also delivered stronger simple guidelines to Whitehall policy makers, in which we set out clearly how we expect them to assess the impact of their policies on women, ethnic minority groups, people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, to ensure that Departments are responsive and act with sensitivity. We need to track our action on our commitment to equality across society.

Does my right hon. Friend see it as a testament to the Government's record on putting policies into practice that the Treasury, the Department of Health, the Department for Education and Employment, the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the Foreign Office are all represented on the Treasury Bench, but that only seven Members are here to represent all the Opposition parties in a debate on issues that affect 52 per cent. of the population?

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Department for International Development is also represented on the Front Bench.

We must look not just at policy making, but at all Government processes—for example, service delivery— and ensure that we understand the differing impact on men and women. A set of proposals will be developed and printed in the "Modernising Government" White Paper, which will be published shortly by my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

For many years, the Women's National Commission has given 50 of the United Kingdom's largest women's organisations a direct voice to Government. I am delighted to report that we have extended the commission's remit by scrapping the limit of 50 member organisations and inviting all women's organisations to join the umbrella group. That is important as the group is a formal channel of communication between Government and women up and down the country. We want to ensure that we talk to all women—women from grassroots groups, community groups, tenants associations and other bodies in which many women are active—who, until now, have been excluded from that process.

This is a programme for women. It is a programme of listening, of action and of delivery with women for women. It is about not just what Government can do for women but what women, working with Government and in their communities, can achieve for themselves and their families. It is about delivering on the key issues that count for women—for example, health, education, crime and jobs. It is about making women's voices heard and supporting women in delivering on their responsibilities to their families, at work and in their communities.

That is what the Government are doing: recognising that the personal can be made possible by the political. We are delivering deeds not words—as the suffragettes demanded—and making things better: better for women and better for all.

I welcome this opportunity to debate the Government's record on delivering for women—a debate that is made all the more important by Labour's emphasis on its approach to women's issues both before and during the last election. I also welcome the Minister with responsibility for women's issues to the Dispatch Box for this debate. I believe that I am correct in saying that this is the first debate on women's issues that the right hon. Lady has opened in the House since her appointment last July. Furthermore, in more than seven months in the job, the Minister has answered only one oral question relating to women—and that was about a health issue. That is hardly an example of placing women's issues firmly at the centre of Government, as the then Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), promised in June 1997.

Does the hon. Lady accept that questions must be asked before they can be answered? Therefore, I assume that Opposition Members did not ask the Minister any oral questions on that topic.

I remind the hon. and learned Lady that it is the Government who have made much of the fact that there are so many female Labour Members of Parliament who are very interested in women's issues. How much interest did Labour Members show in women's issues? How many questions did they ask of the Minister with responsibility for women's issues? Sadly, there were none. I wonder how many questions on that topic the hon. and learned Lady has tabled for the Minister.

If the hon. Lady looks at any Order Paper, she will see a long list of questions specifically about matters that concern women. I have made it very clear that we believe women's issues should not be locked in some Whitehall backwater but should be part of the mainstream of Government. Every single Minister is concerned about the position of women and about improving that position and delivering for women.

I am somewhat surprised by the Minister's intervention because it appears that she now agrees with the Conservative party about the importance of mainstreaming, which was certainly not the impression given by the Labour party prior to the election.

What is noticeable about the issue of oral questions is that when her colleagues, the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the hon.

Member for Deptford, were responsible for women's issues, they were asked a number of questions specifically relating to women's unit matters. Those questions seem to have dried up since the present Minister for Women came to her position.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

A surfeit of hon. Members want me to give way. I give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Helen Jackson).

The hon. Lady referred to the previous Parliament. I remember that at that time, the Minister with responsibility for women was the Secretary of State for Employment, David Hunt, followed by Michael Portillo, and it fell to my hon. Friends to engineer any debate on women's issues during women's week. There was not even a glimmer of a suggestion from those Ministers that they wanted to discuss in the Chamber issues of great importance for women in this House.

Not all my ministerial colleagues in the previous Government who took responsibility for women's issues were men.

:They were men.

The hon. Gentleman says that they were men. My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) is not a man and my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) is not a man. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make sedentary interventions, he should get his facts right beforehand.

The Minister, in opening the debate, referred several times to the Government's programme of action and delivery. She spoke of "deeds, not words" and claimed that the Government were listening to and acting for women. Sadly, the opposite is true. Although the Labour party promised much for women before the last election, it has failed to deliver. Its record owes more to gloss than substance, and this is yet another case of Labour's actions failing to live up to its rhetoric.

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out a number of areas in which she claimed that women's quality of life and role in society had improved. She gave the examples of the number of women in higher education and in the work force. I remind the Minister that those are successes of the previous Conservative Government, who, through flexible labour markets and a healthy economy, ensured that women were able to play a fuller part in the workplace than had previously been the case. The pay differentials between men and women were significantly reduced under the previous Conservative Government, and I am sorry to hear that the pay differential went up last year under new Labour.

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears) and then I will make progress.

Does the hon. Lady believe that the 1.3 million women who will be helped by the first national minimum wage should not receive that wage and should continue to work in a flexible labour market for poverty pay?

I shall comment on the impact of the minimum wage later in my speech, so perhaps the hon. Lady would like to listen to my remarks. As she heard from the intervention on the Minister by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant), problems associated with the minimum wage are affecting organisations and employers throughout the country. Pre-school playgroups will affect women in two ways because people employed in pre-schools are predominantly women and women are benefiting from the opportunity for their children to attend those pre-schools. The hon. Lady should not welcome the news that pre-schools may have to close because of the impact of the minimum wage.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, I have said that I want to make some progress. I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities to allow interventions later, which I shall take.

Prior to the election, Labour promised a Minister for Women with full Cabinet status. Many assumed that that meant a Cabinet Minister with responsibility just for women; it certainly seemed to be a promise for a Minister for whom women would be their sole concern. As the Labour party said in "New Labour for Women",

"The minister for women will ensure that women's interests are taken into account in all policy making, having power to scrutinise all major legislation to examine its impact on women."

We even had the somewhat unedifying sight of the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson) telling women that they would get more sex under Labour. What happened in reality? After the election, responsibility for women was given to the then Secretary of State for Social Security, the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham, who is in her place—Cabinet responsibility for women, but hardly sole responsibility for women.

After much to-ing and fro-ing, the Prime Minister appointed a separate junior Minister for Women, the hon. Member for Deptford, who is also in her place. It appeared that the Prime Minister had recognised the importance of the job. But wait—he had left it so late that there was not enough money to pay any other Minister a full ministerial salary, so the Minister for Women was unpaid. What message did that send about how the Government viewed the importance of women and issues of importance to them? More significantly, what message did it send to women who are still fighting for equal pay?

After a year in which much continued to be promised to women, but during which the Secretary of State's main claim to fame on women's issues was cutting the lone-parent benefit premium, the two Ministers for Women were sacked. What is in their place? Cabinet responsibility for women has moved to the House of Lords. We all know what the Government think of the House of Lords. What does that say about the importance of women in their policy agenda?

The Minister for Public Health now responds to debates on women's issues in this House. Once again, responsibility for women's issues is not a Minister's sole responsibility, as many felt Labour had promised prior to the election, but merely one of the areas in a Minister's portfolio. Indeed, the list of responsibilities of the Minister for Public Health numbers 32. Where do women's issues come on that list? Do they come first, second or, perhaps, third? No, women's issues rank 32nd—bottom of the list.

In November, the Ministers for Women attempted to re-launch the women's unit. In their glossy brochure, "Delivering for women: Progress so far", they listed 18 measures to aid women. Of those 18, there was one strategy, one sub-committee, one initiative, one unit which was not exclusively for women, a new deal which is not working, a minimum wage which will cost jobs, and 12 promises of things to come. That is not about delivering for women; that is still about promising for women. That is not about action rather than words; that is about words and words and no action.

Let us look in a little more detail at the Government's policy actions for women, as they describe them. Once again, they pay lip service to women. Plenty of press releases claim to deliver for women, but actions speak louder than words. The Government have so far failed to deliver across so many areas of policy—be it the scheme to get lone parents back to work, which has been an expensive failure, plans to cut widows' benefit, or centralised employment policies, which, far from being family friendly, can only destroy jobs. In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister has attacked women who drive their children to school, and there has been a refusal to act on genetically modified crops and food.

Oh no.

It is an issue of great importance to women.

If the hon. Lady is so concerned about delivering for women, why will she not withdraw her opposition to the working families tax credit, which will make 700,000 women better off, and abandon her alternative proposal to introduce a tax hike for those 700,000 women?

I shall talk about the working families tax credit later. Far from delivering for women, that tax credit may put many families in a worse position in terms of wallet versus purse.

The Under-Secretary of State for Internationa] Development made a comment from a sedentary position when I mentioned genetically modified crops and food. He may say "Oh, no" in that tone, but food safety issues strongly influence women when they decide what to feed their families, and beef—

Beef on the bone.

Beef not on the bone—which was the result of the Government's decision, and their failure to allow women to decide for themselves what to feed their own families.

Does the hon. Lady accept Labour Members' incredulity at being lectured on the importance of food safety by representatives of a party that presided over the biggest disasters in food health and food safety that any Government in living memory have presided over?

That intervention does not deserve a response.

One message is clear: the Government have not listened to women, and their priorities show more about their own priorities than about women's priorities.

I shall now discuss several specific issues. I shall not touch on all those that the Minister touched on, but I know that my hon. Friends who will be aiming to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, later in the debate will raise other issues.

Let us consider welfare issues. Labour came to power promising to cut the welfare budget by cutting the cost of economic and social failure. Labour adopted as a key policy the welfare-to-work campaign, and within that the aim of returning lone parents to the work force. The Government therefore introduced the new deal for lone parents as part of that welfare-to-work campaign.

The pilot scheme was a dismal failure. Less than a quarter of those lone parents who were invited to participate had an interview. Of those, nearly a quarter did not participate in the scheme and, overall, only 5 per cent. of those invited to participate got a job. We were told that things would get better when the scheme was extended nationwide. The Government are very good at promising that things will get better, but they are not good at delivering better things and better results.

In questions to the Secretary of State for Social Security earlier, it was made absolutely clear that the new deal for lone parents has an overall success rate, not of 5 per cent., as in the pilot scheme—which we were told would get better—but of only 3.8 per cent.

Of course, we welcome anyone finding a job and getting back into the workplace when they want to, but of 163,000 lone parents invited to participate in the new deal so far, only 6,000 have jobs. The scheme has cost £200 million, so each job has cost about £15,000—and it is not even clear that the people who have got jobs under the scheme would not have got them anyway. In each year between 1995 and 1997, about 40,000 lone parents found work—under a Conservative Government. Two years into the Labour Government's new deal for lone parents, only 6,000 have found jobs under the new deal. The new deal is proving to be an expensive failure—failure for Government and failure for women.

Will the hon. Lady visit my local jobcentre, in Alfreton, where the new deal for lone parents has now been rolled out, and where I talked, a couple of weeks ago, to the lone parent adviser? In response to the initial letters that she sent out, 30 people came to a meeting, and she has now obtained jobs for 17 of those lone parents.

I am interested in the experience that the hon. Lady has set out. I note that she did not say how many letters were sent to people.

:Sixty

Sixty letters, and half of those who were sent a letter came to a meeting and now 17 have jobs. Overall, of 163,000 people who have been invited—

:Pathetic.

What is pathetic is the result that the Government are getting from their new deal for lone parents. It is proving to be an expensive failure. It is failing to deliver for women and failing for the Government.

The problems for women in the area of welfare benefits do not end there. The working families tax credit was lauded by the Government as the answer to a working woman's problems. It is also expensive but, more significantly, it will fail to deliver the freedom that women want to choose what is right for them and their families. It will bring more families into the welfare net and hence into the dependency culture. It will provide benefit for families earning as much as £38,000 and it will cost £1.5 billion per annum.

The WFTC will be paid through employers.

I warn my hon. Friend against accepting the Government's estimate of £1.5 billion as the cost of the working families tax credit. That estimate is based on the assumption that no one changes his or her form of child care. If there are large sums available for child care tax credit and people register as child minders, the entire equation changes. The cost could increase to £15 billion if everyone eligible under the WFTC opted for a child minder. If only half of them did so, the cost would be £7 billion.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for setting out the figures so clearly. She has brought more proof about how expensive the WFTC will be. It is interesting that it was up to my hon. Friend to introduce the figures of £15 billion and £7 billion. Those figures are not coming through from the Government. The Government do not want us to know how much the WFTC will cost.

There are other aspects of the WFTC that cause concern. It will be paid through employers, which means that they will have to know their employees' personal circumstances. There is real concern that the scheme will increase the stigma that is attached to receiving benefit. The point has been raised by independent commentators. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:

"As employers and potentially work colleagues would observe the WFTC, it might increase the stigma associated with receiving transfer payments and so decrease take up."

Decreased take-up would mean fewer families benefiting than those now doing so under the family credit regime.

We also have the ridiculous situation that the Government's new arrangements for child care may make it more financially advantageous for a woman to pay a neighbour to look after her children and go out to work herself rather than stay at home and look after them.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Not at this moment. I shall make some progress.

The Government's new arrangements are an attack on the many informal arrangements that are made by women to ensure that their children are looked after while they go to work. At my surgery the other day, I saw a constituent who helps her daughter and son-in-law by looking after their young children for part of the week. She told me, "With this new benefit system, I'm going to have to register as a child minder to look after my own grandchildren." Where will women stand when they are no longer free to make the arrangements that they want for their children to be looked after, when they will have to comply with the Government's set regulations?

The WFTC makes one very significant change for women, about which we have heard little from Labour Members.

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way a second time. Does she understand that there is some confusion, certainly among Labour Members, about the line that the Conservative party is taking? Given that the Conservative party talks so much about choice, surely the hon. Lady accepts that the increase of £17 a week that families in receipt of family credit will receive as a result of the introduction of the working families tax credit will give them choice. At present they have no choice but to work longer hours for poverty pay. They will have the chance to stay at home and spend more time with their children. The WFTC will also give women the choice to send their children to child care, an economic choice that they have not had previously. Therefore, we are empowering women to make real choices when under the previous Government there was no choice.