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Pensions Bill

I do not want to reopen old wounds, but had we won the last election we would already be implementing this promise. That is history, however. I am trying to narrow any differences between us, because it seems to me that there are no real differences of principle. In their own ways, the two major parties have reached similar conclusions. All we are talking about is the time scale. I happen to believe that the Government have tested to destruction the ability of means-testing to deliver help to those who need it most. Those who require any persuasion of that should bear in mind the number of people—up to 1.7 million—who are not claiming the pension credit to which they are entitled. Lest anyone have any illusions, when pension credit was first introduced, the Treasury's assumption was that 1.4 million people would never claim it. It always assumed that it would have the money in its back pocket whatever happened, because at least 1.4 million would never claim it. I do, however, agree with the Minister when he describes this measure as part of a package. As I said earlier—as, I think, did the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central—this is all part of the Turner package. We have legislated for the future raising of the state pension age. We are dealing with personal accounts. It is all part of the same package. We are not asking the Minister to do something that he is not proposing to do; far from it. We are merely asking him to tell us when he is going to do what he proposes within this time scale.