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Social Security

I shall stay on the subject of pension credit because it is extremely important. I am not sure whether the Minister, in his fairly lengthy opening remarks, outlined the full extent of the problem of pension credit take-up. According to a written parliamentary answer of 19 October 2007, total pension credit take-up in 2005-06 was between only 60 and 69 per cent. by case load, and between 70 and 78 per cent. by expenditure. That meant that between 1.7 million and 1.74 million pensioners entitled to pension credit were not claiming it and that between £1.6 billion and £2.5 billion of pension credit was unclaimed.