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Financial Assistance Scheme Regulations 2005

Thank you. If anything, that makes the situation worse. I want to press him on the words, ““if possible””. Under what circumstances does he envisage that it will not be possible? People have been waiting for many months now and I believe there would be outrage—I do not think that that is too strong a word—if it were not possible to make those first payments by December at the latest. I must press the Minister on what possible circumstances there could be that would make the first payments come after December. Reading the small print, I came across the figure of £16 million for the administration costs of the scheme over the first three years. Given that the scheme is intended to pay out at an average rate of £20 million a year over the next 20 years, that is a simply shocking figure. I know it will come from ““unallocated amounts”” elsewhere within the DWP budget, but the fact that, over the first three years, the Financial Assistance Scheme will cost 27 pence in administration costs for every pound that will be paid out on an average basis to those who have been robbed of their pensions, serves to highlight how amazingly mean and stingy the whole scheme is. It seems to me that that must be an all-time record. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister has other examples of schemes where the administration costs of a benefit are higher than that. In terms of delay and of costs, I believe that this will stick in the craw of thousands of people who are waiting, often almost in despair, for their first penny-piece from the scheme. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but on the age of eligibility, why should women, whose normal retirement age under their scheme, into which they have properly paid and worked for many years, is 60, have to wait past that age to within three years of 65 to receive their first payments under the Financial Assistance Scheme? Again, that seems to us to be grossly unfair.