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Benefits Uprating

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. This recession has hit families hard throughout the country, and, as we heard yesterday, low and middle earners, particularly those earning £20,000 and above, will pay the price for the Government's fiscal irresponsibility. The Minister's statement comes at a time of great challenges. Unemployment has reached 2.5 million, with youth unemployment being higher before the recession than when the Government came to power. There are 2.5 million pensioners living in poverty, and the rate of child poverty has increased by 400,000 since 2004. We welcome any action that provides greater support to the innocent victims of Labour's failure to tackle poverty, but does the Minister agree that it is completely unacceptable and deeply cynical for the Government to increase benefit levels before an election, only to cut them after an election? That is exactly what they appear to be doing. The Government are committed to a 1.5 per cent. rise in child benefit, disability living allowance, carer's allowance and incapacity benefit, but they have no funding to continue the measure after the election. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made it clear that""the Chancellor committed himself—or rather, his successor—to increase those same benefits by 1.5 per cent. less than inflation this time next year";" and the pre-Budget report confirms that the policy""avoids a further permanent increase in expenditure"." It is a pre-election con, paid for by a real-terms cut in benefits following the election. Does the Minister understand that such sleight of hand is exactly what we have come to expect from her Government and one reason why so many hold politics in such low esteem? Will she also confirm that this year there is no £60 Christmas bonus, which many pensioners valued this time last year, and explain the reason for its absence? We welcome the increase in the basic state pension, which will be a relief to pensioners who have seen their savings hit by low interest rates. Will the Minister confirm when the Government plan to restore the earnings link for the basic state pension and will she explain how the Government plan to pay for it, having set their face against a state pension age increase that would save £13 billion a year? There was a hidden threat to pensions in yesterday's pre-Budget report. The Chancellor's opaque reference to""phasing in the roll-out of pension personal accounts" —[Official Report, 9 December 2009; Vol. 502, c. 369.]" appears to herald yet another delay in the Government's flagship personal accounts scheme. Will the Minister confirm that personal accounts will not be fully up and running with 3 per cent. employer contributions until 2017? It is not high earners who will lose out from the delay, but people on middle and low incomes, because it potentially leaves millions of people facing a gap in contributions that they might never take up. The measure will not only fail to improve the levels of saving, it could actually reduce saving rates at the very time that we need them to increase. The Association of British Insurers said:""This money will be saved at the expense of getting the low-paid into long-term pension saving, which is absolutely vital for their future welfare in retirement."" Will the Minister confirm that the PBR has taken £2.4 billion out of the pensions of people on low and middle incomes? I also note that the Government are not uprating state additional pensions. Will the Minister tell us how many pensioners are going to lose out as a result? On disability benefits, following the Opposition day debate on Tuesday, I note that there is still concern about the threat that the Government's care reforms pose to disabled pensioners. All the preferred funding models in the Government's Green Paper are underpinned by the integration of attendance allowance and disability living allowance for the over-65s with a future care and support system. In effect, those cash benefits, which are currently paid directly to recipients for them to use as they wish, would be integrated into local authority social care budgets, and that would give older disabled people less control and less independence. On Tuesday the Government were making up policy on the hoof without providing any details. They now have to answer a series of serious questions about how the new policy will work in practice. Will people entering a new scheme with equivalent needs to people currently receiving disability living allowance or attendance allowance get the same entitlement? Finally, will the Minister confirm that the Government are cutting £130 million from the national health service budget as a result of the rise in employer's national insurance which was announced yesterday?