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Welfare Reform Bill

I am grateful to the Minister and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for her interest in this matter. In my belated speech—or, rather, my backdated speech would perhaps be a better way of explaining it—which the Minister very generously allowed me to make, I made the point that it is absolutely right for a Government, having set themselves on a particular course in policy terms, to ensure that those policy terms are met as far as possible. I readily understand why pilots are necessary; I did not in any sense seek to demean them. I take the Minister’s point that pilots in this case are dealing with information already held, presumably by HMRC, which knows the income position of individuals. It is inevitable, I suppose, that pensioners who are sailing close to the limit—in other words, who would attract only an extra 25 or 30 pence a week—would not bother to claim. However, that is no reason not to allow them to claim. After all, the over-80 allowance of 25 pence has been on the statute book for goodness knows how long and no Government has proposed removing it. One thing that the Minister said in this connection that rather surprised me was that the Government are now committed to the fact that pensioners should receive the support to which they are entitled. The words "now committed" seem very odd and I shall have to study the Minister’s exact words.