Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure the adequacy of pensions payments in future years.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The new State Pension was introduced in 2016 and was designed to correct some of the historic unfairness in the previous system, in particular for women, self-employed people and lower paid workers. It forms a clear foundation for individuals alongside workplace and private savings to provide for the retirement they want. Together, the new State Pension and Automatic Enrolment into workplace pensions provides a more inclusive system that supports retirement saving for the long term.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress has been made on pensions dashboards.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Pensions dashboards will make it easier for people to see their pensions information, including their State Pension, in one place online at the touch of a smartphone, laptop, or computer at home. This will help to put people in greater control of their pensions and reconnect them with any lost pension pots.
The Government has made significant progress in facilitating the delivery of pensions dashboards, working in close collaboration with key delivery partners including the Pensions Dashboards Programme, which is part of the Money and Pensions Service, the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Following extensive consultation with industry and other interested parties, the Department laid the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022, in Parliament, on 17 October 2022. This is an important milestone, setting out detailed requirements for occupational pension schemes and for organisations seeking to provide a qualifying pensions dashboard service. The Financial Conduct Authority intends to publish final rules for personal and stakeholder pensions shortly. The Pensions Regulator is providing support to help schemes meet their connection deadlines, including through guidance and writing to schemes at least 12 months ahead of their deadline.
The Pensions Dashboards Programme is responsible for delivering the digital architecture that will make dashboards work and is due to publish its next progress update report in the coming weeks. The overall delivery timetable remains on track with the Programme focused on building and testing the digital architecture to enable the first cohort of schemes to connect from April 2023.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to page 71 of her Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22, HC 193, what recent progress her Department made on the investigation into errors in records relating to home responsibilities protection; what estimate she has made of when the investigations will be complete; how she plans to inform the House of the results of the investigation; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
We are continuing to support HM Revenue and Customs to investigate incorrect National Insurance records relating to Home Responsibilities Protection. Although a small number of cases have been identified, the vast majority of customers will not be affected.
Most customers can check their National Insurance record online which will show their qualifying year status, or they can visit GOV.UK for more information. We will provide an update to Parliament in due course.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department spent on the recent marketing campaign to improve take up of pension credit that included an advert in the print version of the Daily Mirror on 8 of June 2022.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The most recent Pension Credit take up campaign, aimed at pensioners and their family members, was launched in April.
Paid communications activity to promote Pension Credit is ongoing, and is supported by no cost activity such as Press and Stakeholder communications - including the Pension Credit 'day of action' on 15 June, which aims to provide a focal point for the campaign DWP is leading a concerted promotional push across media including broadcast, print, online and social.
The total budget committed to the paid campaign so far this year, including paid press advertising, is £1.2m. The campaign is continuously monitored and optimised to deliver the best value for the money spent.
This is in addition to the Pension Credit material included in the annual uprating mailing, which is sent to over 11m pensioners in Great Britain, and further communications in a variety of ways.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of women affected by the underpayment of the State Pension.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
A written statement about the State Pension Correction Exercise was published on 22 October 2021 which is available using the following online link: -
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many women affected by the underpayment of the State Pension have been reimbursed by her Department through the State Pension Correction Exercise to date.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DWP published data on this on the 22 October 2021.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether people approaching State Pension age will face delays in receiving their State Pension.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Over 50 per cent of claims made on line through Get Your State Pension are processed automatically. All other State Pension claims received to-date, where a payment is due in October, will be processed by the end of October; with the exception of those claims where we need additional information, or there is a future entitlement date.
We do not expect delays to State Pension claims in the future provided all relevant information has been received.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether all those affected by the delays in new State Pension claims have had their claim resolved.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We expect all State Pension claims received to-date, where a payment is due in October, to be processed by the end of October; with the exception of those claims where we need additional information, or there is a future entitlement date.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish her Departments’ analysis supporting the decision to disregard average earnings increases when determining the next State Pension uprating for 2022-23.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DWP expect average earnings figures for July to be around the level seen in June and this would produce a May to July annual earnings growth figure of 8 to 8.5%.
The Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill will ensure pensioners’ spending power is preserved and that they are protected from higher costs of living. But it will also ensure that as we are having to make difficult decisions elsewhere across public spending, pensioners are not unfairly benefitting from a statistical anomaly.
Annual growth in average employee pay is being affected by temporary factors that have inflated the increase in the headline growth rate. These are compositional effects where there has been a fall in the number and proportion of lower-paid employee jobs and base effects where the latest months are now compared with low base periods when earnings were first affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department made of the potential merits of assessing underlying levels of wage growth in 2021-22 with the impact of furlough discounted for the purposes of uprating the State Pension prior to the decision to suspend the triple-lock.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In order to consider whether it would be appropriate to use a rate of underlying wage growth, we consulted the Office for National Statistics views. The ONS published information on measuring underlying pay growth on 15 July 2021 :- “Far from average: How COVID-19 has impacted the Average Weekly Earnings data”.
The ONS identified temporary factors, called base and compositional effects, that have increased the headline growth rate in earnings above the underlying rate. There is no single accepted approach to assessing underlying growth. ONS have published a range of possible growth rates, but acknowledge these should be treated with caution.
Therefore, it would not be appropriate to use estimated underlying levels of wage growth as it would not be a robust basis by which to up-rate and there is ongoing volatility in these data.