What plans he has to help employees of companies affected by large-scale redundancies to find new work. [45011]

What plans he has to help people affected by large-scale redundancies to find new work. [45021]

We have developed the rapid response service to support people affected by significant redundancies and help them make the transition to sustainable new jobs. This enhanced service allows a flexible response based on local need. I am pleased to announce that, on 1 April, the rapid response service became fully operational, supported by a further £6 million investment over two years.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. He might recall the major threat of a factory closure in my constituency just under a year ago. Indeed, his Department helped considerably in creating a renaissance for the factory's prospects. However, many people still faced redundancy and a lot of those who came to my surgery thought that the Government should work closer with the citizens advice bureaux and local agencies that have local knowledge to help them through that difficult period when they have just been made redundant and are looking for new work. Can the Minister comment on working in conjunction with local agencies to help people to find their way back into work?

My hon. Friend makes a fair point and I am grateful for what he says about the work of officials in difficult redundancy rounds. Although it may not seem like it at the time, it is the case that those who are in work mostly go on to get further work. However, it is right that the Department is able to help. It is also right that we co-ordinate our work with other agencies. Indeed, part of the extra £6 million is intended to do exactly what my hon. Friend requests.

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the threat of job losses at the Coalport and Faslane bases on the Clyde. Although I believe that such job losses are neither inevitable nor necessary, will he confirm that if they materialise, his Department will work at once with the Scotland Office, the Scottish Executive, the management and unions to form a lower Clyde jobs taskforce along similar lines to the successful upper Clyde taskforce that followed recent redundancies and threats of redundancies in the upper Clyde last year?

First, let me sympathise with my hon. Friend. Representing a shipbuilding constituency myself, I know how difficult the threat of major redundancy rounds can be to communities that rely on a single large employer. I pledge that the Department will work with others to do what we can to help in the event of a redundancy round, although I understand that work is being done within the industry on the viability of the business, so we are not in that situation yet. The Department is in touch with others who have an interest in the event of a major redundancy round, including the agencies of the Scottish Parliament and of local government. If the help is needed, it will be there.

The Scottish National party shares the anxieties about the potential job losses at Faslane and Coalport. The Minister referred to significant redundancies. Presumably he accepts that redundancies on a numerically smaller scale may none the less have a greater marginal impact on small communities. Does he also accept that the real issue concerning jobs in Scotland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom will not be solved until the Government start to address the underlying structural problems that face business in the UK, including their high-pound policy and the infliction of the highest fuel taxes in the industrialised world?

May I say gently to the hon. Lady that more people are in employment in our country than ever before? If it is the policy of the Scottish National party to oppose defence expenditure, how does she hope to preserve defence jobs?

Does my right hon. Friend share my deep regret at the recent closure of Scotland's only deep coal mine and the loss of 500 jobs? Will he join me in welcoming the rapid partnership that developed between the Employment Service, Scottish Enterprise Fife, Fife council, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Scottish Executive, the mining unions and many others to give those men every possible assistance in training and job opportunities? Does he agree that those miners have many skills and special qualities and that their needs should continue to be prioritised by the Government and the partnership in the weeks ahead?

As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (David Cairns), I understand how difficult these major redundancy rounds are. Shipbuilding and coal mining communities rely on a single, focused employment base, and when that is jeopardised the situation for the local community becomes very difficult. I can confirm that the Department's officials are working very closely with agencies of the Scottish Parliament and with Fife council to do everything that we can to help people who are displaced into other employment opportunities. We know that the opportunities are there, and my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the experience and skill base in the industry.

I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire) on Scottish mining jobs. Will the Minister take into account the fact that most large-scale redundancies come out of the blue, and the Government have to react to them?

I always listen particularly carefully when a matter being put to me is not my responsibility, in case I inadvertently give a commitment that I should not. The fairest thing that I can say to my hon. Friend is that I will draw his remarks to the attention of the appropriate Minister. He has made his point, and he is right to say what he does about redundancy rounds, whether they occur in education or in traditional heavy industry.

What assessment his Department has made of the effect the new deal has had on youth unemployment. [45014]

If he will make a statement on his proposals to reform the new deal for the young unemployed. [45016]

Since 1997, youth unemployment has fallen by 43 per cent. and long-term youth unemployment has been reduced by more than three-quarters. The new deal for young people has played an important part in that, helping more than 350,000 young people off benefit and into jobs, and improving the work prospects of many more.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The new deal programme and associated Government measures are undoubtedly turning round the despoliation of many years of Tory rule in Wales. However, will he expand on the new deal's effect on the local and national economy because, surely, great savings are made if youngsters are in work?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks, and I welcome him to Question Time—we hope to see him here again.

Why do Wildcat and other schemes in the United States achieve far higher success rates than the new deal for young people at a fraction of its £8,000 per job cost?

The Conservative game has already been given away by the party's health spokesman. First, the Conservatives pretend that the Government's programmes are not working and that they can never work, and then they say that the provision should not be made at all or that it should be funded by insurance or by people's own resources. They then try to wrap that up—this is apparently the most difficult part—into a message that they can sell to the electorate. The electorate will say, "Under the Conservatives there were a third of a million young people out of work, and under Labour the figure is below 4,000."

The new deal has been a tremendous success in tackling youth unemployment, and we should strongly congratulate the Government on that. In my constituency, many young people who previously languished on the dole are now in work. Many of the young people who are still unemployed have associated problems, such as physical disabilities, learning difficulties, drug abuse problems or, indeed, literacy and numeracy problems. In any development of the new deal, will my right hon. Friend ensure that advisers are supported with a package of measures to help such young people back into work?

We have two new pilot schemes. One is to look at greater flexibility, and the other of course is the StepUp pilot. They are designed to help those who have been through the new deal but not found work so far. This is a radical programme, and there are 20 pilots. The Government are, effectively, purchasing the job for the individual for a year. We are absolutely determined that nobody is left out or bypassed by the schemes. Everyone who can work should have the right to work, and the Government should help them do so.

The Minister is not exactly being reckless in predicting that the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) will be in the House in future, but is he not being a little cavalier with the facts? Was not the National Audit Office right when it said that, to evaluate the new deal, it is necessary to take into account those who would have found jobs anyway? When that is done, did the NAO not find that the reduction in youth unemployment brought about by the new deal is not 350,000, as the Minister has just claimed, but 35,000. and that the cost per job under the new deal is far greater than the Government have maintained? In fact, is the new deal not one more example of this Government taking and spending a great deal of taxpayers' money and not making much difference in return?

The hon. Gentleman rather confirms the accuracy of the answer that I gave the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady). We can see what the Conservatives are about. The hon. Gentleman selectively quoted the National Audit Office report. Neither that report nor any other has said that the new deal is not value for money. There will always be an element of dead weight cost in these schemes. One might just as well argue that teaching children to read has a dead weight cost because some of them would learn to read anyway. That is a ridiculous argument. We are talking not about a job-creation project but employment schemes. 'They are serving our country, and in particular disadvantaged people. They are serving them well and are value for money too.

The Minister knows that Burnley will have one of the StepUp programme pilots. What steps will be taken in that significant programme, which will be important to those who have not been able to gain employment, to publicise, particularly in the local and regional press, exactly what is being done?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question and for the close interest that he has taken in the pilot scheme. It will—I hope—have an important impact on his constituency. It is the Government's intention to publicise the programme. Indeed, we intend formally to launch the pilots in the next few weeks. I will make sure that proper publicity is given locally, and I shall draw his remarks to the attention of those who are managing the scheme locally. It is a very significant new scheme. For the first time, the Government are saying that we guarantee a job for a year to someone who has found the labour market intractable so far. I think that that should be welcomed.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I give notice that I wish to raise the matter on the Adjournment following the Minister's woeful failure to answer on the fact that schemes elsewhere in the world perform better?

The hon. Gentleman has given notice.

If he will make a statement on trends in the value and expected yield of pension funds since 1997. [45017]

The investment return achieved by pension funds between 1997 and 2001 has seen real returns of 6.8 per cent. The real rate of interest available from savings accounts over this period was 2.8 per cent. So, put simply, by investing in pension funds, people have had more than double the amount of return that they would have received from a conventional savings account.

I thank the Secretary of State for that Alice-in-Wonderland answer. On the eve of the Chancellor's sixth Budget statement, should we not remember what he did in his first Budget, which was to mount a £5 billion a year raid on pension funds? Is it not as a result of that that firm after firm is abandoning final salary pension schemes, with the effect that a stealth tax whose effect was meant to dawn in people's realisation many years hence is becoming obvious now? It is obvious that people's pensions will be worth a fraction of what they would have been worth without the Labour Government raiding their pension funds.

First, the hon. Gentleman may not like my reply, but it was a reply to the question that he put. I can see why he might have shifted his ground in the light of my answer.

Despite my right hon. Friend placing responsibility as he has, is it not a matter of much concern that many employees are to be cheated of a decent pension as a result of employers closing down their final salary pension schemes? Why should employees—unlike Members of Parliament and others—be faced with inferior pension arrangements such as money purchase schemes, which will deprive them of a decent standard of living in retirement? I hope that the Government will take action.

As I have said on several occasions, later this year we will publish proposals that will, I believe, help both individuals and companies to contribute to pensions. It is worth bearing it in mind that in the past few years sales of pensions have increased by some 50 per cent.

The Secretary of State will be aware that, on average, employers contribute far more to final salary pension schemes for their employees than to money purchase schemes. He referred to proposals that he will bring forth later in the year. Is the goal of those proposals merely to slow the rate of decline of employer contributions to schemes, or does he think that they will cause those contributions to increase from their current level?

The objective must be to make sure that people save more for their retirement. The big problem facing us and Governments throughout the world is that, because people are living longer, we need to persuade them to save more for their retirement.

Has the Secretary of State read the unanimous report of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, of which the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) is a member, which welcomed the spending and principles underlying the State Pension Credit Bill and thought that the Bill would achieve its goals? What will my right hon. Friend do to ensure that the pension credit is taken up by as many pensioners as possible, which is central to making it work?

I read the Select Committee's report and am delighted that the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) has joined his predecessor in welcoming the pension credit as a much needed and overdue reform. We shall wait to see just how public he makes that support over the next few weeks.

The Secretary of State cannot be allowed to duck the Government's responsibility. Is he aware that there is a direct link between the Chancellor's changes to advance corporation tax and the closure of final salary schemes? Is it not a fact that millions of people in their 30s and 40s will no longer be able to look forward to an independent retirement as the Government force more people on to means-tested benefits? Will the Secretary of State apologise to them, or is it the Government's strategy to force more people on to means-tested benefits?

The hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, is talking a load of nonsense. There never was a time, unfortunately, when everybody looked forward to retirement on a high pension through a funded pension system. We have introduced reforms to the pension system to make sure that the state system does more to help people on low incomes. By introducing stakeholder pensions, we are providing pension options that were never available in the past for some 5 million people. With regard to final salary schemes, as I have told the House on a number of occasions, not least a few moments ago, the Government will introduce proposals to help both individuals and companies save for retirement.

Can the Secretary of State confirm that between 1988 and 1992 5 million people left occupational pension schemes following the disastrous reforms of the Social Security Act 1986? As a result, £11 billion of compensation had to be paid, which has had a serious effect on the balance sheet of life assurance companies?

Opposition Members tend to forget that what happened during the 1980s, one of the worst examples of the mis-selling of pensions, would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of people losing, in some cases, just about everything if they had not got the compensation for which we fought hard. When we look at pensions and put in place a pension system, it is important to ensure that people who ought to be in the state system are looked after and remain there. People who have privately funded pension provision should also be adequately protected. The Conservative party should remember that its policies in the 1980s had near-disastrous effects, not just for individuals, but for the pensions industry, for which it sometimes claims to speak.

May I thank the Secretary of State for the Department's letter to me about pensions headed, "Important information from the Department for Work and Pensions"? However, it is difficult to have confidence in its advice on pensions, when it was addressed to

"Mr David Willetts, Member of Parliament, Labour Party, Regent Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire."

First, it is a tribute to the Post Office that it managed to find the hon. Gentleman despite the way in which his letter was addressed. The Post Office—or Royal Mail, Consignia or whatever it is called now—will be pleased to know about that.

It was the Secretary of State who quoted those statistics all the time when he was trying to argue that there was not a problem when it was obvious to everybody else that there was one.

The value of pension funds depends to a large extent on the value of the stock exchange. As I explained to Conservative Members a few moments ago, the reason that some pension funds face a problem is that the value of the stock market has fallen for reasons that we are aware of over the past two to three years.

So the Secretary of State does not know how much our pension funds are worth or how much we are contributing to our pension funds. He will not even give an estimate of the impact of a tax change that his Government introduced. No wonder the Government deny that there is a crisis in our funded pensions when they are taxing them more, regulating them more and spreading means-testing to penalise saving. Millions of people will have a poorer retirement as a result of the Government's policies.

The hon. Gentleman is wrong in a number of respects. First, in relation to taxation, I shall take individual savings accounts, for example, which were roundly denounced by the Conservative party. It is worth bearing it in mind that that tax advantage savings vehicle has meant that 12 million people now have £60 billion of savings. That sum is far more than that invested in PEPs and TESSAs, which the Conservative Government introduced. More important, many of those saving in ISAs, for example, are on low incomes. They are precisely the people whom we should encourage.

What progress has been made in meeting his Department's targets on tackling benefit fraud. [45018]

We are making good progress in tackling benefit fraud, and we expect that progress to continue. Results show that by March 2001 we had reduced the level of fraud and error in income support and jobseeker's allowance by 18 per cent.—nearly double our first milestone of 10 per cent. That was a year ahead of schedule. By 2004, we are committed to reducing fraud and error by 25 per cent., and to halving it by 2006.

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. All fraud is to be deplored, but does he agree that it is important that the message goes out that genuine applicants should not be put off by whatever propaganda the Government are using, rightly, to attack fraud? Will he join me in supporting the Government message, and make it loud and clear that the majority of asylum seekers and refugees, when they are given an opportunity to work, are net contributors to the public purse and do not take from it?

I certainly agree that when, for reasons that we all understand, people are properly granted asylum, they become economically active and are an asset in all sorts of ways to our community and our economy.

I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that in spite of the successes in countering benefit fraud, it continues to be a major drain on the country's resources. Does he agree that one of the problems is the lack of co-operation between the various Government Departments in exchanging information that would ensure more convictions and less fraud?

We all agree that the more we can crack down on fraud, the more money we will have for social priorities such as care of the elderly, education and health. There is now a great deal of co-operation between Government Departments. That was a major problem in the past, but under, for example, the Social Security Fraud Act 2001 we can not only share data with other Government Departments but require data from banks and even utilities. It is vital that the fraudster cannot play off one Government agency against another, which is why we have taken the powers to collect the data to attack the fraudster.

Between October 1999 and December 2001, there were 50,000 investigations of working families tax credit fraud, but only 28 prosecutions. Will the Minister undertake to look into the matter more carefully and demonstrate a new resolve to deal with fraud in relation to the working families tax credit next year?

Working families tax credit is, properly, the responsibility of the Treasury. I will draw the hon. Gentleman's question to the attention of its officials. We have responsibility for, among other things, the Benefits Agency. Between 1997 and 2000–01, the total number of prosecutions, cautions and penalties increased from 11,700 to almost 27,000. That demonstrates that we are tough on the fraudster and detecting fraud out of the system, and tough on the causes of fraud.

What assessment he has made of the adequacy of pension provision in the UK. [45019]

As I said a short while ago, people need to save more for their retirement. Our approach is based on a partnership between state and private provision, as both are essential. Since 1998 we have reformed the structure of pensions in this country to build and strengthen existing partnerships between the state, the pensions industry, individuals and employers.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he accept that there is real concern that people are not making adequate provision for their retirement? Does he also accept that the Government have a crucial role in educating the public and encouraging them at an early stage to make adequate provision for retirement, given the fact that there is a decline in occupational pensions and that people are living longer in retirement?

My hon. Friend is right. People need to be aware of the fact that as we can all reasonably expect to live longer we have to make provision to finance us at whatever standard of living we think we want in retirement. The introduction of annual pension statements will help to concentrate minds, but more needs to be done with pensions and other financial products. As I said on previous occasions, when we reach the stage when pension products and the way in which they are sold are heavily regulated, we may unintentionally impede access to the very products that we want people to buy. A number of measures are necessary—first, to make people aware of the need to save and, secondly, to make it easier for them to acquire the means to save.

Following the Government's heavy defeats on Friday on the Pensions Annuities (Amendment) Bill, will they now accept the Bill and give people the chance to have a decent income in retirement?

No, because the purpose of the Bill is to benefit a minority of people in this country who are better off and on higher incomes. I have made it clear time and again that although the Government are willing to consider ways in which the annuity market might be improved—indeed, we are consulting on them—we will not introduce a system that blatantly benefits a tiny minority at the top of the income scale at the expense of everybody else. That approach might be all right for the Conservatives, but it does not commend itself to us.

What plans he has to make jobcentres more responsive to the needs of those who are out of work. [45020]

At the start of this month, we launched Jobcentre Plus, bringing help on jobs and benefits together under one roof with a very clear work focus. That will ensure that personal advisers are more responsive and can inform claimants of the full range of support available and the options open to help them move from welfare into work.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and for all the work that he and his Department have done to reduce unemployment in Dudley, which has fallen by about 25 per cent. since 1997. One of the problems in old manufacturing areas such as Dudley is unemployment among older men. Will he explain what the new institutional changes will do to address it?

My hon. and learned Friend raises a very important problem. At our previous Question Time, hon. Members on both sides of the House expressed support for increasing the effort that we put into helping men over 50 to get into work. It is worth reflecting on the fact that a third of people over 50 but under retirement age are out of work, and that half of them depend on benefits for most of their income. That is clearly unsustainable in the long run, so one of the principal objectives of Jobcentre Plus and the rest of the Department is to ensure that we do more to help men over 50 to stay in work or get back into it if they lose their jobs. The rapid response service, to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Work referred, will help in that regard. All the evidence suggests that if somebody can be helped as soon as they lose their job, it is better in the long term.

The Secretary of State is right to point out that the creation of Jobcentre Plus a fortnight ago is a welcome step forward, as it introduces the concept of personal advisers who offer advice and back-up when people are trying to get off benefit and into work. Does he accept that analysis of the ONE project, the precursor to Jobcentre Plus, indicated that the personal advisers' case load was such that they did not have enough time to give advice and spent most of their time processing benefit claims? Will he assure the House that when Jobcentre Plus is properly launched—I accept that it will take some time—there will be a proper balance between the efficient processing of benefits and the provision of adequate time to get people off benefits and into work?

A number of problems with the ONE project became obvious in the first year or so of its operation; the hon. Gentleman highlights one of them. The advantage of setting up a single agency that brings together benefit processing and job search is that, once and for all, we can get rid of the artificial distinction between people who sign on for work and those who sign on for benefits. That is especially important for some older people who are simply written off on disability benefits.

My concern is with younger unemployed people. How will the new Jobcentre Plus arrangements connect with the Connexions service to create a better gateway to work for young unemployed people?

My hon. Friend is right. I was talking about older people because whereas in the past youth unemployment was by far the biggest priority that the Government had to tackle, we now need to put the same vigour and enthusiasm into tackling unemployment among older people.

Does the Secretary of State realise that there is a problem of access, especially in a deeply rural constituency such as the Vale of York, where not a single jobcentre is to be found? Does he accept that there is a gulf between his Department's aspirations and its delivery on the ground?

We try our best to position jobcentre offices around the country. As I understand it, it is not Conservative party policy to spend millions of pounds more on setting up jobcentres—indeed, it is quite the opposite.

I am asking you.

It is very good of the hon. Lady to do so. It may be some time before her party is again in a position to have a hand in these matters. She cannot say that we should spend less on the administration of my Department and that she wants more jobcentre offices. As we roll out the Jobcentre Plus network and make decisions about where the single offices are situated, we will make sure that there is an even spread and that transport communications are such that people can get access. If the hon. Lady supports me in ensuring that the Department is adequately resourced to do all that, I welcome her as a recruit to the cause.

How many pensioners in the Kettering constituency benefit from the minimum income guarantee. [45022]

As at November 2001, 3,100 pensioners in the Kettering constituency benefited from the minimum income guarantee. Those pensioners are at least £15 a week better off in real terms than in 1997. More than 2 million pensioners nationally benefit from the MIG. Additionally, this winter more than 19,600 older people in my hon. Friend's constituency received a winter fuel payment, benefiting each eligible household by £200.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and welcome the real help that the poorest pensioners in my constituency receive. However, the minimum income guarantee is a means-tested benefit, and most pensioners would prefer a significant increase in the basic state pension. Will my right hon. Friend find time to speak to the Chancellor about that before the Budget statement on Wednesday?

The Government have substantially increased the basic income of all pensioners. Initially, our greatest priority was to help the 2 million pensioners who did not benefit from minimum increases, whatever the rate, because for various reasons they were excluded from the basic state pension. We make no apology for being the first ever Government to find out who those 2 million people were and to ensure that they benefit from the minimum income guarantee. We have moved on to the second phase with the introduction of the pension credit; the passage of the State Pension Credit Bill resumes tomorrow. I should have hoped that the Liberals and the Conservatives would have a last-minute change of heart and support the Government in this, not oppose giving extra cash to millions of pensioners.

After those exchanges, I am not sure whether I should offer comfort to the Minister or to the hon. Member for Kettering (Phil Sawford). Unless the Kettering constituency is highly untypical—I rather doubt it, because it is next to mine and contains some of my former constituents—it, like mine, has 1,000 pensioners who are entitled to the minimum income guarantee but are not taking it up. Is not that wholly unsatisfactory? Will not the position get worse through the additional complexities of the pension credit scheme? Will the Minister consider whether it will be possible to reach out to pensioners who are entitled to the guarantee credit or the savings credit through a pension service that is to be located far away in another county?

If it was not for this Government, the pensioners in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Phil Sawford) and that of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) would remain abandoned and not receive an extra £15 a week on average. In some instances, the poorest pensioners in the hon. Gentleman's constituency receive an extra £20 a week. When we discuss the State Pension Credit Bill tomorrow, he will have a dilemma, which he may as well face now: will he oppose a measure that will put an extra £2 billion in the pockets of many pensioners, especially women and people who would never benefit under the Tories' previous pension proposals? He should give a straight answer: will he frustrate the opportunity for those people to receive the £2 billion?

What his Department is doing to improve work opportunities for carers. [45023]

Last April, we increased the earnings limit for invalid care allowance so that carers who combine some work with their caring responsibilities can keep more of their earnings. That was the first increase since 1993. The earnings limit for ICA will now be increased regularly in line with changes to the lower earnings limit.

I am grateful for those details. I shall host a conference in Stafford on Friday about care for the elderly. I anticipate that many carers will say that it should be a reasonable aspiration to balance caring responsibilities with work.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's point. We want to encourage carers who wish to combine caring with some sort of work, and some 30,000 recipients of ICA already do so. We hope that the arrangements that we are making with Jobcentre Plus will enable carers who wish to do that to receive the appropriate assistance and help.

Will the Minister look into a loophole that can affect carers who give up work to look after a member of the family who develops an illness or disability? If the disability assessment takes many weeks, carers can find themselves without both the income that they previously enjoyed and a benefit income. Local benefits offices are often not effective in helping those people to bridge the financial gap. Will the Minister consider that and encourage them to take a more enlightened view in such cases?

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. Clearly, there are eligibility criteria for ICA, and the person who is cared for must be in receipt of specific benefits to fulfil them. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not suggest that we should take steps that would prevent us from ensuring that those who claim benefit are eligible. We need to protect against fraud and error. We must ensure that those who become entitled to benefits receive them as soon as possible. Our reorganisation of the Benefits Agency into a working age agency and the pension service should enable us to do that.

Does my hon. Friend accept that a large number of carers—such as Mrs. Greenwell of Bournmoor in my constituency—are of retirement age? Will she comment on the fact that Mrs. Greenwell and others lose their carers allowance when they reach retirement age? Thousands of people are caring for their loved ones without the additional help that they previously received, at a great saving to the Government.

I am aware of the problem that my hon. Friend raises. ICA cannot currently be paid at the same time as another income maintenance benefit. This is known as the overlapping benefit rule, and it has been a central part of the welfare state ever since it was established. I cannot promise to get rid of that rule, but my hon. Friend and his constituent may be interested to learn that a regulatory reform measure is making its stately way through the House that will—subject to the House's approval—extend the possibility of paying ICA to those over 65. This will particularly benefit women who do not have full national insurance contributions, and who do not, therefore, get a full retirement pension. The measure will not, however, abolish the overlapping benefit rule. I cannot give my hon. Friend any comfort on that.

What progress has been made in tackling housing benefit fraud; and if he will make a statement. [45026]

Improving the overall performance of housing benefit administration is key to tackling housing benefit fraud, and many Members know that not all local authorities perform that task well at present. We have introduced new performance indicators to make an improvement possible.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, and I acknowledge the work that has been done on this matter so far. Will he, however, undertake to discuss further with local authorities how we can ensure that people claiming housing benefit are actually living in the accommodation in which they claim to be living? I—and, I suspect, many other hon. Members—know of properties that are giro drops: addresses at which people register while living elsewhere. Those people are not only committing benefit fraud but depriving others of much-needed local authority accommodation. Will my hon. Friend look into this matter and see what can be done to improve the situation?

Among other things, the fact that we will not have girocheques redirected is one part of our armoury that I should draw to the attention of the House. It is also important that local authorities should make house visits, not only in suspected cases but more randomly to verify that people are living in the house that they claim to be living in.

Is not the real test of the effectiveness of the Government's policies for dealing with housing benefit and social security fraud to be found in two simple facts? The first is that the level of fraud has significantly increased in the last four years; the second is that the number of prosecutions in 2001 was significantly less than in 1997. Is not all this exemplified by the fact that in one recent financial year, more than half of all local authorities did not bring even one prosecution for housing benefit or council tax fraud?

Is it true?

I will answer the question in a formal way, rather than responding to heckling from the Opposition Front Bench. In terms of levels of housing benefit fraud in recent years, we simply do not know. It was this Government—not the last one—who initiated the first proper, ongoing research into this matter, and that will enable us to report to the House on levels of housing benefit fraud. I regret to say that the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) is simply wrong about prosecutions following local authority investigations. My reply to the heckler is, therefore, that he is wrong, too—not, I think, for the first time. In 1997–98, there were 700 prosecutions following local authority investigations; in 2000–01, there were 1,100. That figure has increased under the Labour Government.

What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the new pension service in meeting the needs of pensioners. [45029]

It is very early days yet, but we are committed to making a real difference to the lives of pensioners. The pension service, which was formally launched on 1 April 2002, replaced Benefits Agency services for pensioners and will provide a better service that is tailored to pensioners' needs.

I am grateful for that short reply from the Minister. Does he agree that one welcome aim of the pension service is its stated intention to simplify the pension system, but does he share my concern that simply shortening the forms and reducing the number of questions will not achieve that aim? Does he not accept that changing the forms will simply constitute window dressing if he is not prepared to change the means-testing system itself?

I had another two pages to my answer, which I shall send to the hon. Gentleman.