Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister to be in receipt of the triple lock, but it is not an effective way of tackling pensioner poverty and it is bankrupting the country. I am sorry not to be party political, but can we not have a consensus between the parties that we should phase out the triple lock, concentrate resources on pensioners in real poverty and have an agreement on dealing with benefits generally to get people back into work? We should work together.

[Torsten Bell]

I am always keen to work together with the Father of the House. He mentions the triple lock, but we are doing far more things to tackle pensioner poverty. There were 900,000 pensioners eligible for pension credit under the Conservatives who were not claiming, and that is why we have brought forward the biggest take-up campaign ever seen. The marketing campaign this year will run from September to the end of the financial year, we are carrying out research on what works to encourage take-up of pension credit and we are stepping up data sharing across Departments, including between His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions.