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Pensioner Poverty

We have said that we will do it at some point from 2012 but in any case by the end of the next Parliament. That is the position that the Government take. We are replacing home responsibilities protection with a new system of weekly credits for those pensioners receiving child benefit for children up to the age of 12, approved foster carers and those who spend at least 20 hours a week caring for severely disabled people. That is to ensure that there is provision through the state system for those whom the Committee has identified as the ones who are particularly liable to suffer pensioner poverty. From 2010, an extra 1 million people will build up entitlement to the state second pension. Uprating the basic state pension in line with earnings from 2012 should roughly double its value by 2050, compared with the value if current uprating policies continued.