Category: Speeches

David Johnston – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by David Johnston, the Conservative MP for Wantage, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

Today’s motion is curious because, next week, we will get the decision on this issue, but let us leave that aside for a moment. Last year, I spoke in a debate on the triple lock. At that point, we had the highest level of basic state pension in relation to earnings in 34 years. At that point, it had increased by £2,050—it is now £2,300. Along with auto-enrolment, that has been one of the most significant policy decisions taken by this Government not just in pension policy, but in domestic policy much more broadly. We now have more than 19 million people auto-enrolled in workplace pensions, which is a fantastic achievement. But of course we do not just support our pensioners via the triple lock, generous though that has been. We know that pensioners spend a higher proportion of their money on energy, and there they have had a £400 reduction. They have had an energy price guarantee, which will save, on average, £700, and a winter fuel payment topped up by a pensioner cost of living payment, worth up to another £600.

We have to think about the poorest pensioners and not just think about pensioners as one big group. There we see a further cost of living payment of £650. We see cold weather payments if the temperature of their homes drops below a certain level. Underpinning both those things, we see pension credit. We have to get more people to claim it who are eligible for it because it is worth on average £3,300, which is yet more support. Time and again, both on the triple lock and on the other support the Government give, they have been very generous and constantly thought about how best to support pensioners.

When it comes to Labour motions and Labour Front-Bench speeches, I look for what is not there as much as what is. The motion is specifically about keeping the triple lock for the coming year. As I say, we will get the decision next week. The motion does not say where to get the money for that, but let us leave that to one side for now, even though it is several billion pounds. More importantly, it does not say anything about what should happen beyond that. I listened carefully to the shadow Secretary of State to see what his view on future pension policy might be, but I am afraid that I did not hear much. That is notable because week in, week out in this House what we are hearing from the Front Benchers is, “The next Labour Government will do this” and, “The next Labour Government will do that” but we did not hear that today on pension policy.

Pensions are the second highest category of expenditure after health, so a party that hopes to form a Government ought to have a view about what it wants to do on pension policy that is not just, “We will continue Conservative policies” or “We will support all the expenditure but we will not support any reductions in other areas.” I hope that in his wind-up we might hear from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for whom I have a lot of time, what Labour’s view of pensions might be. If the answer is, “We would have to look at the finances to understand what we will do” that is precisely what the Government have been doing to form their decisions next week.

09/11/2022
Grahame Morris – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Grahame Morris, the Labour MP for Easington, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

I would also like to quote the Prime Minister’s first speech from the steps of 10 Downing Street on 25 October, only a few weeks ago:

“I will unite our country, not with words, but with action…This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.”

Well, I am not sure how long those promises have lasted. It is certainly clear that the Prime Minister is avoiding a general election. In truth, he can claim no personal democratic mandate to be Prime Minister. He bases his authority on the Conservative manifesto on which he and his colleagues were elected in 2019:

“the mandate my party earned in 2019 is not the sole property of any one individual, it is a mandate that belongs to and unites all of us.”

By “us”, I think he is referring to members of the Conservative party. He continued:

“And the heart of that mandate is our manifesto.”

The Prime Minister bases his legitimacy on the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto, so may I remind the House of what it said about the triple lock? Many Opposition Members have already said this, but let me do it again for the sake of completeness. It said:

“We will keep the triple lock, the winter fuel payment, the older person’s bus pass and other pensioner benefits”.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) said he was gratified that Labour Members were supporting the Conservative manifesto. Can I tell him that the Conservative party was not alone in making those promises? In fact, 626 hon. and right hon. Members of this House, including myself, were elected on a manifesto commitment to maintain, retain and protect the triple lock. So it is in order for us to make reference to that.

Other colleagues, including the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), referred to the relative position of the UK. The UK has one of the least generous state pensions in the developed world, as is demonstrated by the OECD figures, which show that the UK spends less on old age pension benefits as a proportion of GDP.

In April, when the Prime Minister broke the Conservative party manifesto pledge, the state pension increased by only 3.1% instead of the 8.3% due under the triple lock. That has cost someone in my constituency on the new full state pension £487 a year. I am sure Conservative Members are going to be concerned. I lived through the days of terrible pensioner poverty and I felt that the last Labour Government went a long way to address that, through not just the basic state pension, but the supplements introduced by Gordon Brown and others.

I would be terribly embarrassed if my Government’s legacy was one of pensioner poverty. However, the groundwork for poverty has been laid by the current Government; those foundations have been laid over the past 12 years. It has left groups such as the WASPI—I know that the Minister and others do not like to hear that term—cohort of working women born in the 1950s and 1960s in desperate hardship through no fault of their own.

Fifty of the UK’s areas most at risk in the cost of food crisis have been identified and not surprisingly the north-east and my constituency are among the worst affected. This year, our communities will see the introduction of “warm spaces” to help those who are unable to heat their homes because of spiralling energy costs. Our Government and the economy are failing to meet the most basic needs—food and warmth. A real-terms cut to the state pension, alongside soaring energy and food costs, will force many more pensioners into poverty. So I urge Conservative Members to do the right thing, back their own manifesto commitment and vote to retain the triple lock.

09/11/2022
Anthony Browne – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

It is wonderful to see Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP, and the Liberal Democrats at one point, so united not just by a successful Conservative policy but by a Conservative manifesto commitment. It is delightful to speak in a debate in which the Opposition are calling for the Government to support their own manifesto commitment.

Another thing that unites the House is that we all support dignity in retirement and financial security in old age. The Government have an absolute duty to support pensioners and to reduce pensioner poverty. Pensioners, as various Members mentioned, are on fixed incomes. During a cost of living crisis, as we have at the moment, they cannot go out and get a second job, work extra hours or demand that their boss gives them a pay rise. They have to live on their state pension or their occupational pension, which is why I am so grateful for all the measures that the Government have introduced during this cost of living crisis, including the energy price guarantee, the £300 winter fuel payment, the £150 increase to the warm home discount and the £400 energy bill support scheme for all homeowners. Pensioners and those on means-tested benefits will also receive an extra £650 of cost of living support.

All those measures are very welcome, but this debate is about not the Government’s emergency tailored support but the state pension. At what level should it be? Should we keep the triple lock? These questions have been at the centre of a political tug-of-war for a decade. In recent times, as I mentioned in my interventions, the state pension has been at record lows as a proportion of average earnings. Under the last Labour Government, it went down to around 16% of average earnings between 2000 and 2008—that is the lowest rate of the modern era. Various colleagues mentioned Gordon Brown’s offer to increase pensions by 75p a week in 1999, which is a derisory amount.

The whole House has spoken in praise of the triple lock, which was introduced by the Conservatives and has been a manifesto commitment ever since. I point out to the Opposition Members who deride the Government’s track record that, actually, the state pension is now far more generous than it ever was during 13 years of Labour Government. Labour’s state pension increases were initially by inflation only, which led to the 75p increase, and then in 2002 Gordon Brown introduced an increase by either a 2.5% upper limit or inflation. Labour never brought back the earnings link, which first came back in 2011 when we introduced the triple lock.

The triple lock has worked well. Since 2012-13, pensions have gone up by 2.5% four times, by earnings three times and by the CPI rate three times, which shows that the triple lock does kick in. Since 2010, we have increased the state pension by £2,300, which is 31% more than if the state pension had increased by just earnings or inflation—that is £720 more. As a result, the basic state pension as a proportion of earnings is at its highest rate for more than 30 years—higher than at any time during the last Labour Government. The new state pension is now 25% of average earnings, a historically high level.

There is no doubt that the triple lock is expensive, which is why we are having this debate. We spend more than £100 billion a year on state pensions, which is £7.9 billion more than if the triple lock had never been introduced by this Government. We clearly have an economic black hole at the moment, and we need to work out where the money comes from. I am very supportive of the triple lock, and I was elected on that manifesto commitment. I know all my colleagues are very supportive of the triple lock, but I am also not a Minister, so I am free to speak out in support of the triple lock. I fully appreciate that the Government are going through a budgetary process for the autumn statement, so they cannot say, “Yes, we support this.” They have to look at everything in the round and make sure that we live within our means. As a result, I fully support the Government’s position of not stating their position on the record at the moment. We will hear the autumn statement next Thursday, and I look forward to the Government’s pronouncements.

09/11/2022
Simon Lightwood – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Simon Lightwood, the Labour MP for Wakefield, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

In a speech earlier this year, the Prime Minister said:

“I believe that a wealthy and civilised country should offer older people dignity in retirement.”

I completely agree but, from the dozens of emails and letters I receive, it is clear that the elderly are facing anything but the dignity they deserve. Doreen from Hall Green told me:

“We will go hungry and cold, and this is what we get for working from 15 years old and paying into the system.”

Maureen from Wakefield city centre told me:

“We either live in warm homes and struggle to feed ourselves…or turn off the heating.”

It is truly shocking to hear these stories in 2022.

Voters took the Conservatives at their word when, in 2019, they committed to the triple lock. Since then it has been U-turn after U-turn, whether on income tax, fracking or their disastrous mini-Budget, and it is hard-working families and the elderly who are paying the price. More than 17,000 pensioners in my constituency could be £915 worse off overall compared with what the state pension would have been if the triple lock were fully applied in 2022 and 2023—of course, the triple lock was broken last year, too.

This matters a lot in Wakefield, where incomes are below the national average and where in parts of my constituency, even back in 2019, 26% of older people were living in poverty. That number must have risen dramatically during the pandemic and during the cost of living crisis, and it will only rise further if pensions do not keep up with inflation. In an area where long-term illness rates are high, it terrifies me to hear Age UK saying that older people are now risking their health by switching off their heating and essential medical equipment because they worry about the cost and because they fear that worse is to come.

Our older generation raised us, taught us, served us and cared for us, and in return it is only right that they should have the security they deserve in retirement. Their ask is simple. As Doreen says, they have paid into the system all their lives, and they want to be assured that they can continue to afford to live with dignity. That is why I will stand with our pensioners and support the triple lock by proudly voting for the motion this afternoon.

09/11/2022
Alexander Stafford – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Alexander Stafford, the Conservative MP for Rother Valley, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. We have heard some great speeches today about the importance of the triple lock and the pension. One thing that unites the whole House is the need to look after the most vulnerable in society, and this Government have done that over the past three years and over the past 12 years: they have always put the most vulnerable at the heart of everything they have done. They introduced the triple lock in 2011, which in itself put the most vulnerable at the heart of things to ensure that there would be no more of the insulting 75p rises that happened under the last Labour Government.

This Government decided that we needed to look after our pensioners, but why are we having this debate today? Some would say it is because of the Labour party’s political games and its impatience to wait nine days. Nine days might seem like a long time to Labour Members, but it really is not if we are to get the right sort of information from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Some might say it is a political game to create noise and scaremonger pensioners, but I do not believe that; I think there is genuine concern on both sides of the House about looking after the most vulnerable. That is why I say that people can rest assured that this Government have stepped in and will step in.

One of the reasons we are here today is what the Government did to step in and help people during covid, when £400 billion of Government money was spent to help people to keep their jobs, to help the most vulnerable and to help some of the poorest and the eldest. Now it is right that we are looking at all aspects of how things are financed. There is no such thing as a magic money tree, and we need to review everything. Nevertheless, those on fixed incomes, especially pensioners, are some of the most at risk from our rising inflation. We have to be sensible about this.

When I give speeches in my constituency, I always say to people that the best way to deal with inflation is to get better jobs, good jobs, which is why I have organised three job fairs already this year and have more lined up. We want to get more people in Rother Valley into jobs, which is why our rate of unemployment is significantly lower than the national average. However, I appreciate that pensioners cannot do that, because they are on a fixed income, and although I would like to see more older people in work—they offer many benefits to the job sector—most people on pensions are reliant on fixed incomes and inflation hits their savings hard. They cannot make sacrifices on food and heating, and they cannot make sacrifices on their necessary transport, so it is important that we stick with them and look after them. However, I am not a Government Minister—[Interruption.] I know; it’s a shame—so I do not have to say that I am not going to back the triple lock. I back the triple lock, because I think it is incredibly important. I also know that the Ministers on the Front Bench are listening to the conversation. They cannot say what we want them to say, because they have to wait, but they are listening intently.

Pension credit is incredibly important to my constituents and to constituents across the country. This pension top-up is a vital lifeline, worth up to £3,300, and it is a great initiative introduced by this Government. Unfortunately, take-up is not nearly as high as is needed or as it should be. I urge Ministers to listen carefully and to try to get more people to claim the money owed to them—it is their money and it is ringfenced for them—because this Government have put in the money to help the most vulnerable.

Finally, auto-enrolment is probably the biggest success of the past 12 years of Conservative Government. We have already heard that 88% of people now have an auto-enrolled pension. This is not one-off help for pensioners; it will revolutionise how people of my generation and my children’s generation access their pensions. Pensions are a long-term, fundamental benefit and, frankly, we probably will not need to have this conversation in 30 or 40 years’ time, because the auto-enrolment scheme introduced by this Government will have solved the long-term problem. We have had this problem for decades and, over the past 12 years, this Government have provided long-term help. The triple lock provides medium-term and short-term help, and I hope it is retained—I am sure it will be—but the auto-enrolment scheme is one of the best out there, and I hope the Government expand it to self-employed people and continue to emphasise auto-enrolment.

09/11/2022
Paulette Hamilton – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Paulette Hamilton, the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

Everyone deserves financial security in retirement and should be able to rely on a decent state pension, but currently around one in six older people is living in poverty and over the last decade pensioner poverty has risen by almost half a million. People in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale have been contacting me, worried about the impact the cost of living crisis is having on their finances. Many older people in my community are facing tough choices between heating and eating and they simply cannot afford a real-terms cut to the already limited state pension and pension credit they receive. One of my constituents, an 87-year-old living with significant health issues, said to me:

“I am careful now about the electricity and try to use the microwave instead of the oven. I haven’t put the heating on because I am frightened of the cost.”

This is not a new issue. Pensioners across my community were struggling to make ends meet in the spring and summer, yet the Government have still failed to clarify their position. Despite winter now being just around the corner, we are now seeing a summer of Tory chaos coming home to roost. The Conservative Government made a manifesto commitment in 2019 to maintain the triple lock. This would have seen the state pension rise with inflation every year of the current Parliament, but conflicting statements from Ministers about where cuts might be made are hugely worrying for many across the country, and the prospect of another round of devastating austerity is looming large. My constituents need clarity, reassurance and stability to help them to manage through this crisis.

The Prime Minister has claimed that his Government are compassionate, but we are yet to see any compassion for the most vulnerable, older people in our society. The public deserve to know what options Ministers are considering, with reports that they may again refuse to apply the triple lock to pensions in the future years. If this does happen, it would be yet another breach of their 2019 manifesto commitments. Up to 850,000 older people in the UK do not receive the pension credit they are entitled to, and older people on low incomes are falling through the cracks.

If the Government are serious about supporting older people, they should now commit to targeted financial support for those in later life. We all have an interest in ensuring that older people in our communities live in dignity. The 13,000 pensioners in Erdington, Kingstanding and Castle Vale will be over £900 worse off if the Tories break their promise on the triple lock. Across the UK, older people are being overlooked and the Government must now step in and give them the support they need to stay warm and safe this winter.

09/11/2022
Duncan Baker – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Duncan Baker, the Conservative MP for North Norfolk, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

Some Members might say that I have something of a vested interest in this motion, given that I represent the oldest cohort of residents in the country. I will say more about that in a moment. I have often stood in this place over the last year and called for the triple lock to be restored, but before that debate is had, I think it important for us to remember why we are having this one. It is important to put on the record again that it was this Government and the then Chancellor, now our Prime Minister, who intervened to provide what were widely deemed to be some of the most comprehensive packages of support not just in this country but in the world to look after the livelihoods of people up and down the land so that they could cope and get through the period of the pandemic financially.

At the time when the Office for National Statistics was considering figures that would make it possible to generate the triple lock uplift last year, it was abundantly clear that a statistical anomaly resulting from people coming off furlough and returning to normal wages had created a bump which meant that, while we were in the grip of a pandemic and did not know quite where the virus would go next, it would be simply unfair not to make a one-off decision to revert to the double lock. We on this side of the House understood that, and I dare say we reluctantly accepted it, but we just did that. It was a year ago on 15 November—which I would just add is my birthday—when I said, on the record, “woe betide us” if we let our pensioners down again. So here we are once more, and in just nine days—that is, two days after my birthday—we will again be listening to the autumn statement that comes along. As my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford said, it is absolutely right that we consider this in conjunction with the OBR report rather than prejudging the event that will take place in nine days’ time.

This is quite some statistic that I am about to give the Secretary of State. Across England and Wales, we in North Norfolk are the oldest local authority with the highest percentage of the population aged 65 and over—33.4% of my population. That is 15% higher than the national average. One in three of my constituents is over the age of 65, and in the last decade alone that figure has increased by 17.8%. So I am not just standing up here and saying this; it really does matter to my constituency, because 27.8% of those constituents are retired, and that alone is roughly double the national average. Even further than that, 4.8% of my constituents are over the age of 85.

The argument has already been made that with inflation running at 10%, it is unfeasible for people who are on a fixed income, and certainly those who are 85 and over, to go out and earn their way out of a difficult set of bills, even though the Government have enormously supported them with many interventions to help them at this difficult time. The Prime Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box and said many times that he will protect the most vulnerable and that he will be fair and compassionate. I believe that he will be; he certainly was during the pandemic when he was Chancellor. So I do believe that in just nine days’ time the right decision—the moral and ethical decision—will be made, that the triple lock will be returned and that the one in three constituents I represent in North Norfolk who are affected will get what they have paid into all their lives.

09/11/2022
Paula Barker – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Paula Barker, the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

The Prime Minister recently appeared on the front page of The Times beneath the headline “State can’t fix all your problems”. While that may be true in the absolute sense, I think that the British people are right in making two basic assumptions. First, they rightly assume that the state will not make life harder, and secondly, given that the very essence of politics is priorities, they rightly expect their welfare, financial security and basic dignity to be the prime concerns that govern our actions in this place and the Government’s actions across Whitehall Departments. On both counts this Government have failed miserably, and have done so for 12 long years. In response to today’s motion, they have a golden opportunity to be unequivocal in stating that the triple lock on pensions is here to stay and will be protected.

Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)

I have been inundated with emails from pensioners in my constituency expressing a mixture of anger, fear and despair at the removal of the triple lock. A 70-year-old woman has described sitting in her living room with only candles for heat because she cannot afford to pay her energy bills. That is unthinkable. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must consider the full impact of removing the triple lock on our most vulnerable?

Paula Barker

I entirely concur with what the hon. Lady has said. My inbox, like hers, is full of emails giving examples similar to that of her 70-year-old constituent, from people who are choosing between heating and eating.

Why is it so important for the triple lock to be protected? The answer is quite simple. Our elderly people are suffering under this cost of living crisis, and have been suffering under Tory austerity for much longer. Pensioner poverty has been on the increase since the first half of the last decade: this is not something new. It is now widely reported that the number of pensioners living in poverty has topped the 2 million mark, including an extra 200,000 more poor pensioners in 2021 alone, according to the Centre for Ageing Better. That is a figure that should bear the hallmark of deep shame for any Government, and not least for a Prime Minister who was in No. 11 while the problem was becoming worse. Pensioners are falling into debt for the first time in their lives, with all the anxiety that that brings in later life.

Anthony Browne

Is the hon. Member aware of a report on the triple lock that I mentioned earlier, produced by the House of Commons Library? It shows that as a proportion of average earnings, the basic state pension is now higher than it was at any time under the last Labour Government, and that is a result of Conservative policy.

Paula Barker

I refer the hon. Member to the response from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) to that very point, which I think was more than eloquent.

It is good, decent, working-class pensioners who are suffering, along with many more who may be asset-rich yet cash-poor. People who have worked for many decades are being denied the basic dignity of living free from fear. In the north-west region alone, nearly half a million pensioners are living in some form of poverty, including too many in my own constituency. Inflation is due to start falling; the Government know that. We already know that it would not be right to scrap the triple lock, nor would it make for sound economics—especially at this moment—to hit pensioners in the pocket with a real-terms cut in their incomes. People need support now, rather than the drawbridge being pulled up. The shift of wealth from working and middle-class households upwards has never been as great, and those inequalities are borne out in the way we treat our older people.

When Ministers hold great offices of state and lecture the British people about tough choices while dishing out billions in failed public sector contracts to their friends, removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses and increasing the cost of mortgages to pay for unfunded tax cuts for the few, it is particularly galling that the Government cannot come out and unequivocally back our pensioners today. If they can prioritise all that in times like covid and during these economic headwinds, the very least they can do is walk through the Lobby with the Opposition today. The last thing that our pensioners need now is uncertainty, and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to join us in the Lobby this afternoon.

09/11/2022
Gagan Mohindra – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Gagan Mohindra, the Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). I was brought up in the area that he represents, and I have fond memories of his part of the world. Let me also welcome the Secretary of State to his place, and, indeed, welcome the whole new Front Bench.

As we all know, our country finds itself in an incredibly difficult economic position, and I look forward to the Chancellor’s fiscal event next week. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Angela Richardson), in an intervention earlier, made an important point about why the slight delay was required, namely to ensure that we have the OBR figures that Members in all parts of the House have requested during previous debates on our finances.

My party has a strong record of supporting older people, and I hope that that record will continue: we need it to do so now more than ever. One of the highlights of our Government over the last 12 years has been auto-enrolment for employees in small companies, which means that 88% of eligible employees now have savings pots that they would not have necessarily been encouraged to have before. During the pandemic, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks)—now the Prime Minister—took the necessary steps to keep our economy afloat, but those decisions came at a cost. In the wake of that spending, coupled with the awful Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, we now face a cost of living crisis. Sacrifices must be made. The Chancellor has some extremely difficult decisions to make, the results of which we will hear in nine days.

Given the cost of living crisis, and notably the hike in energy bills, it is more important than ever to protect the most vulnerable members of our society, and I am grateful to the Government for the work they are doing to support pensioners at this difficult time. As we enter the colder months, I am particularly proud of their commitment to help keep energy bills as low as possible and the additional support that is specific to pensioners, including the £300 winter fuel payment.

Like many of my colleagues, I have received countless items of correspondence from constituents pleading for the triple lock to be retained, and I trust that that decision will be made in nine days’ time. I hope that the Chancellor will continue the good work that he is already doing, and I look forward to our honouring the commitments that we have historically made in our manifesto. I agreed with the right hon. Member for East Ham when he said that when people have done the correct thing before, we should ensure that we protect them as much as possible. We should always seek to incentivise good and indeed best behaviour, and I hope that next week’s statement will demonstrate that that is being done.

09/11/2022
Stephen Timms – 2022 Speech on the State Pension Triple Lock

The speech made by Sir Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, in the House of Commons on 8 November 2022.

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster). I thank him for the help he gave me when he was a Minister, and I agree with what he says about pension credit. I think the key is probably for local government to work more closely with central Government, because local councils have the pensioner income data to work out whether pensioners are entitled to pension credit. If we could improve co-operation, judgments could be made much more automatically.

I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) that this debate is happening only because of the catastrophic Government blunders in September. Before then, there was no issue; there was a very clear commitment from the then Chancellor, who is now Prime Minister, that the triple lock would be honoured. Unfortunately, what happened in September has created the very difficult situation that the Secretary of State rightly described.

It is important to remember that there has already been a big real-terms fall this year in the value not only of the state pension, but of working-age benefits, which were increased by 3.1% in April when inflation was at nearly 10%. That was justified at the time on the basis that that is how the usual uprating formula works: pensions and benefits are uprated in April by the rate of inflation in the previous September. The then Chancellor acknowledged that the effects would need to be addressed next April, so he gave an assurance in May that the same formula would be applied again for next April’s uprating. We now know that pensions and benefits will be uprated by 10.1%, which was the rate of inflation in September.

On pensions, as we have been reminded, there is also a Conservative manifesto commitment. As I said in my intervention on the Secretary of State, if the promise on pensions is not kept next April and pensions are instead uprated by less than the rate of inflation, it will be almost without precedent.

Since 1977, there has been a statutory obligation, defined in a variety of ways, to uprate in line with inflation. It has been honoured every year since then except 1986, when the rate of inflation was 1.1% and the decision was made to uprate the state pension by 1%—0.1 percentage points less. Apart from that, there has been uprating by at least the rate of inflation every single year. To depart from that approach now, on the scale that has apparently been considered recently, would be absolutely without precedent in 50 years. In November 1980, inflation was at 16.5%; the state pension was uprated by 16.5%. In April 1991, inflation was at 10.9%; the state pension was uprated by 10.9%.

It is clear why there has been that commitment all the way through: because people who have given a lifetime of work and have retired from working have already made their contribution, so there is nothing that they can do to make up the difference if the value of their state pension falls. I think we all recognise that there is an obligation on the state—a social contract—to maintain the value of the state pension. That contract should not be breached as a result of the Government making catastrophic errors in their management of the economy in September.

The considerations with working-age benefits are different. They have also been sharply reduced in real terms this year, but over the years they have frequently not been uprated in line with inflation. As a cumulative result, according to the Library, they are now at their lowest level in real terms in the 40 years since 1982-83. Trussell Trust food banks gave out 2.1 million emergency food parcels in 2021-22; they gave out 60,000 in 2010-11. They have reported that demand in August and September this year was 46% higher than last year. Why is the economy failing so many people? How many more are the Government willing to push into destitution?

The annual family resources survey has started to collect data on food insecurity to get a handle on what is going on with food banks. We now have results for the first two years, 2019-20 and 2020-21; the Secretary of State and I had an exchange about them at Work and Pensions questions recently. Food insecurity among universal credit claimants fell from 43% in 2019-20 to 27% in 2020-21, reflecting the £20 universal credit uplift introduced in March 2020, just between those two financial years. Now that that has been taken away, food insecurity will have shot up again. We will have to raise the level of universal credit to address the current mass dependence on charitable food banks.

Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is outrageous that we now have more branches of food banks than of McDonald’s?

Sir Stephen Timms

It is a great shame on us all that so many people are dependent on charitable food banks, and the numbers are still rising. We certainly must not fail to uprate social security, universal credit and pensions in line with inflation in April, because otherwise there will be yet another big surge in demand. That is why it is so important for the Prime Minister to honour the promise that he made as Chancellor.

There is one more uprating we need that cannot be ignored. The benefit cap was introduced in 2012. At the time, it was based on the level of median earnings. It has never been uprated. It has changed only once: in 2016, it was reduced. Its value has lost any connection with the earnings level to which it was supposed to be linked when it was introduced. If it is not uprated next April, whatever level of uprating is decided on, thousands more families will crash into the cap for the first time and many will have to start going to a food bank to keep themselves alive.

It is time to recognise that mass food bank dependence is not inevitable. We can turn back from this. We can do much better than this. In the decisions announced next week, we must—at the very least—not make things worse.

09/11/2022