Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Laura Trott and Marsha De Cordova(1 year ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Laura Trott
Labour put up pensions by 75p. We put them up by nearly £20. We are doing all that we can to support pensioners, and they know that we have got their backs.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
State Pension
Debate between Laura Trott and Marsha De Cordova(1 year, 4 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Laura Trott
I would be more than happy to do so. I know that we spent £1.2 million over the summer. I have signed off a campaign for this winter, with more coming after Christmas, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman with the exact amounts.
That leads me nicely on to the hon. Member for Battersea, who referred to the take-up campaign. We have had a huge take-up campaign over the summer, and we have done one recently as well. We have further communication planned. It is something I am very focused on, and I would like to work with all hon. Members who are interested to ensure that it happens.
Marsha De Cordova
Is any work being done to measure the impact of the summer campaign on the take-up of pension credit? Going forward, I am very happy to work with the Minister on this.
Laura Trott
We know that claims for pension credit have tripled since the summer. On average, we used to get 2,000 claims a week—that has gone up to 6,000. The seven out of 10 figure that everybody uses comes from the family resources survey, which was last done in 2019-20, which has caused the difficulty with exact details on eligibility. Because of the pandemic, the survey has not been repeated, and there is an 18-month delay on the figures. It is very difficult to get up-to-date data on actual eligibility levels, which is something that we need to address over the longer term. In the interim, though, we have the numbers of people who are making the claims through the line, which, as I have said, have gone up threefold.