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(Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What we are seeing, and what we have seen over the past few years while this Government have been in office, are rapid increases in the personal allowance. The main personal allowance is rapidly catching up with the age-related allowance, which gives us this opportunity to make the simplification, as we are doing. Those who are affected by the withdrawal of age-related allowances will still see the total amount of deductions that they pay reduce significantly compared to those under the age of 65, because we are retaining the exemption from national insurance contributions for those of state pension age. So, for example, even under the freeze, a 69-year-old with an income of £18,000 in 2013-14 will pay less than half as much in tax and national insurance contributions as someone aged 30 earning the same amount. Let us take another example. An individual earning £14,000 a year and born on or after 6 April 1948 and therefore not eligible for an age-related allowance will still pay less than half as much tax and national insurance in 2013-14 on employment income as the previous year when they turned 65 if male and 62 if female. This is the result of the increase in the personal allowance and because people of state pension age do not pay national insurance. It is important to consider these changes to the age-related allowances in the context of the wider support that the Government offer to pensioners. It has been said today that pensioners have been disproportionately hit, but that is simply not true. The UK has 11 million pensioners right across the income distribution who receive the basic state pension. They benefit significantly from the Government's decision to introduce the triple lock for the basic state pension and will continue to benefit year after year. The triple lock was one of the earliest actions of this Government. It ensures that each year the basic state pension will be uprated by the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5%. That meant that from this April the basic state pension increased by the CPI inflation rate of 5.2%, an increase of £5.30 a week in a full basic state pension, the largest ever cash increase in the basic state pension. Under the previous Government's plans, which we inherited, the basic state pension would have increased not by inflation but by earnings, which this year was only 2.8%. That would have been an increase of only £2.85 a week. This means that the basic state pension is £170 a year higher in 2012 than it would have been under the plans of the previous Government. It is all very well saying that it is inflation; that was not how the previous Government were going to calculate it. It would have been by earnings, and on this occasion that would have been lower.