Social Security and Pensions — 7 Feb 2022 at 19:17

“Broadly speaking, there seems little prospect of reversing the trends since around 2012/13 of rising child poverty (which rose by four percentage points to almost a third of children by 2019/20) and rising pensioner poverty (which has risen by five percentage points to almost a fifth of pensioners by 2019/20)”.

“mitigation comes at a price and is not sustainable.”

“around three quarters of Universal Credit claimants will lose out”.

“will probably have that all taken away from them in higher energy bills and in the national insurance rise… It will be particularly grim for those who did not benefit from the change because they are out of work or on very low earnings”.

“not fit for the period of high and rising inflation we now face…the poorest are heading for a 3% year-on-year cut in their real benefit levels and living standards.”

“reported that they were often unable to meet essential day to day living costs”.

“increase the speed with which changes can be made to legacy benefit rates.”

“I am not anticipating a big action plan, no.”

“when communicating this change, DWP did not explain that people with long periods of contracting out could be significantly worse off. It instead chose to focus only on the benefits of the new State Pension and other separate pension changes.”

“review and report back its learning from our investigations…In particular, it should ensure that its literature clearly and appropriately points out that some individuals who have large GMPs and reach State Pension Age in the early years may be negatively affected by the changes. It should explicitly tell people to check their circumstances and should provide details to the public about how they can do this.”

“focus on identifying the individuals affected, assessing their potential losses, and communicating with them”,

“I had personally been searching unsuccessfully for the GMP factsheet for months on gov.uk using a range of search terms since you spoke in parliament about this issue in February 2021…How anyone affected was expected to know it was there I will never know. There was no press release or other publicity to encourage the large numbers of people affected to look at the gov.uk site factsheet.

I was shocked to read the factsheet. It completely failed to properly inform people about the Ombudsman’s ruling that there had been maladministration or that they could claim compensation.”

“There has long been a profound mismatch between what those with a low income have, and what they need to get by .”

“Energy rebates are a buy now pay later solution which only provide temporary relief later this year. And linking financial assistance to Council Tax will result in a complicated lottery that means support is not targeted at people who really need it.”

Debate in Parliament |