Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of people in receipt of pension credit whose income from their state pension and pension credit was (a) less in the 2014-15 financial year than it was in the previous financial year, and (b) less in the 2013-14 financial year than it was in the 2012-13 financial year.

The overall impact of benefit up-rating on a customer’s income depends on a wide variety of factors (including for example any changes to their non state pensions that occur around the same time) which means we cannot accurately measure these impacts. However, the increases in the basic State Pension under the terms of the triple lock, have been more significant than the reductions in the savings credit. Overall it is unlikely that any Pension Credit customer should be worse off, in cash terms, as a result of the uprating decisions made over the last three years.