---

Caring for the Elderly

I am not happy if one single pensioner is in poverty, but I know that, thanks to this Government, far fewer are living on low incomes than in 1997, because there is pension credit and winter fuel payments. I have not been to Norwich in the run-up to the by-election, but I have knocked on an awful lot of doors in the past few months, and poorer pensioners, to a man and woman, say to me that they are better off than they were. They recognise that the Government have targeted resources on them. Means-testing may be inefficient, and we might wish that we could do otherwise, but it has meant that we have been able to help the poorer people in society. I turn now to the issues thrown up by yesterday's social care Green Paper.