Business of the House

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Every day in this House is Cleethorpes Day. We had a fantastic answer from the Prime Minister yesterday on ensuring that every possible service, junction and railway crossing was improved in Cleethorpes. Today, we are talking about the buses. This is a great priority, but I think it may be a subject for an Adjournment debate.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The charity Independent Age estimates that 2,754 pensioner households in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran are missing out on a combined £7.4 million every year in unclaimed pension credit. Worryingly, there have been no initiatives from the UK Government to improve pension credit take-up in recent years. Will the Leader of the House make a statement explaining why that is and what he personally will do to address the situation?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Members of Parliament can help with this in encouraging people to take up benefits to which they are entitled. I am sure that the hon. Lady does that in her constituency and I commend her for doing so. But the issues around pensioners have been tackled by this Government. More than £120 billion will be spent on benefits for pensioners, £99 billion of which will be on the state pension in 2019-20. The triple lock is being maintained and the warm home discount scheme is being introduced and extended. So every effort is being made to help pensioners and I encourage hon. Members to persuade pensioners in their constituencies to claim what is their due.