Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to tackle pensioner poverty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)]

To tackle pensioner poverty, we are both increasing the state pension and running the biggest ever pension credit take-up campaign. Raising the new state pension in line with the triple lock over this Parliament is set to increase it by over £2,000 a year, while 60,000 extra pension credit awards were made in the year to July compared with the previous 12 months.

[Gill Furniss]

More than a quarter of a million pensioners received compensation from the Pension Protection Fund and the financial assistance scheme, but those who accrued their income before 1997 have suffered a real-terms cut of 24% in the past five years alone. I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to provide indexation on these accruals, but many of those who will benefit are elderly and in ill health. Can the Minister confirm that he will implement this much-welcomed change as quickly as possible?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. I, like her, have met and listened to lots of those affected by the lack of indexation on pre-1997 accruals within the PPF and the FAS. I can assure her that, assuming the Pension Schemes Bill receives Royal Assent, the uprating will take place at the next PPF uprating, which means January 2027 on current estimates.