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Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 4) Regulations 2008

My Lords, this has been an important debate and I acknowledge the strength of the views expressed around the Chamber. Before I get into some of the detail of the Motion, I refer to the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about pensioner poverty and the Government's position on it. Frankly, we are not in the mood to take any lectures from his party on that. Our strategy since 1997 has been to target help on the poorest pensioners while providing a solid foundation of support for all. We have a good track record of reducing pensioner poverty. Since 1998, we have lifted 900,000 pensioners out of relative low income. Pensioners are now less likely to be living in poverty, as measured by relative low incomes after housing costs are accounted for, than the population as a whole. If we had continued with the system that we inherited from the noble Lord’s party, we estimate that there could have been about 1.5 million more pensioners in poverty today, and we will be spending about £12 billion more on pensioners in 2008-09 than if the 1997 system had been continued.