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Benefits Uprating

This year the retail prices index is above earnings levels, and we have therefore increased the pension by the higher rate to ensure that people do not lose out. As for the hon. Gentleman's question about council tax, the answer is that—as with many things—it depends. It depends on whether someone is able to access the various benefits that are available to help people on the lowest incomes with their council tax. Numerous people across the country will benefit from some of the proposals that I have announced: we estimate that by 2010 up to 50,000 pensioners will be helped, many of them as a result of claiming benefits relating to council tax. As was mentioned earlier, we have had problems in getting people to claim their pension credit, so we are making changes in relation to take-up. We are launching a campaign to inform people that they need not pay so much council tax, and that if they telephone the Pension Service it will not only ensure that they pay less, but perhaps enable them to claim pension credit at the same time. Reducing council tax would provide quite an incentive. People do not like paying taxes but they may also object to claiming benefits, and I hope that the council tax incentive can be used to get people on to benefits and lift them out of poverty.