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Pensions and Social Security

Obviously I cannot speak for the Northern Ireland Member who raised the issue pertaining to his constituents, but as I represent a rural constituency in which people pay excess prices for their fuel and often have no access to social tariffs, I am very concerned about that as well. The underlying issue, which I raised with the Minister, is that older people and people with disabilities who spend a lot of time in their houses are increasingly more affected by inflation than those of us who spend most of our day outside our homes. Both the Office for National Statistics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have pointed out that older people experience inflation at a higher rate than the rest of us, as do people on low incomes. The evidence is there. What concerns me is that CPI does not measure accurately the actual experience of people's costs, which are higher than either CPI or RPI—