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Pensioner Poverty

The Committee's reports on simplification, on carers and on tackling pensioner poverty have considered a one-stop shop. The answer is not necessarily to amalgamate everything into one Department, but could be to amalgamate it all into one telephone line or one door that people can walk through so that everything is dealt with together and there is the clearest possible analysis and response to each person's situation by an official. The second area I want to touch on is carers. "Tackling Pensioner Poverty" refers back to our report on carers because many carers are of retirement age. If ever a system needed simplifying, it is the interaction between the state retirement pension and carer's allowance. I am not the only Member of Parliament to whom pensioners have come, saying that they have applied for carer's allowance and have received letters from the pensions agency saying, "You are entitled to carer's allowance and your reward is £0.00." Do people understand that? Of course not. Pensioners cannot receive two income-replacement benefits simultaneously. They therefore cannot receive the state retirement pension and carer's allowance at the same time. However, the Government changed the rules a few years ago, so an exception is that people can receive a reduced state pension topped up to the level of the carer's allowance. In general, the two cannot be received together. Despite that, if people want to get the carer's credit, they must first apply for the carer's allowance. That is difficult to explain to some carers. In the report on carers, the Select Committee came up with the good idea of dividing the carer's allowance in two. The first allowance would be the carer's allowance and the second would be a caring costs allowance that reflected the cost to the carer of the caring work they do. We recommended to Government that the second element, which is not an income-replacement benefit, should be paid whether the carer is above or below retirement age. We returned to that recommendation in the pensioner poverty report. I am pleased to say that the Government did not dismiss the idea out of hand. In response to the report on carers, Ministers said that they would look at carer's allowance as part of an overall review of benefits and benefit simplification. Will they consider it further and give a concrete answer to the problem? If not, pensioners who receive pension credit will continue to not receive carer's credit because they do not want to go through, do not think they have to go through or do not know about the rigmarole of claiming for carer's allowance in order to be told that they cannot have it, but that they can have something else instead. The Select Committee's reports on carers and pensioner poverty said some very nice things about carer's centres. That relates to the point my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) made about having a single focus. They are a place where people can go to learn about their whole benefit entitlement. This comprehensive report covers lots of other things, including the issue of disability living allowance and attendance allowance, the default retirement age, which the hon. Member for Henley mentioned, age discrimination, financial advice and choosing the correct annuity. Last but not least, it covers the importance of health and well-being—many poor pensioners experience ill health. We need to look at all the issues that affect pensioners. If we can lift pensioners out of poverty, we can help them to lead much fuller and healthier lives. That is why the Committee's report is a good one. I am proud to be a member of the Committee and I fully support our Chairman and the report.