Speeches by Milne.

“I would like to explore whether you think the Government have a clear rationale and objective for the state pension. For example, the aim of the Pensions Commission’s reform was to help people achieve a percentage of working life income in retirement—for example, a replacement rate of 45% for median earners. Do you thi…”

“Thank you. Deven, you were talking a little earlier about the application process and the obstacles that may place in the path. Does it have a significant impact on take-up?”

“Following on, Age UK has said that recent public awareness campaigns have had limited impact. Do you agree with that? Why would that be the case? Deven, perhaps.”

“I have a set of questions around pension credit. The big event that has happened lately is winter fuel payment restrictions. What changes has that made to pension credit take-up, perhaps starting with you, David?”

“Finally, have you seen any evidence that people who have been turned down for pension credit are then deterred, perhaps, from applying for other benefits? Are you seeing that at all?”

“You also admitted that although there was evidence for the health impacts, there was little on the wider societal costs of pensioner poverty. Do you think that is still the case?”

“You referenced earlier how more applications are going on for pension credit and also there is a surge in failed applications. It has hit 50% this year. The year before it was only 40% and the year before that 25%. We are seeing a sharp increase. What are the reasons for that? You might have thought that what happened …”

“Finally, Policy in Practice said it would like to be able to measure the fiscal savings to local authorities from increased take-up. Do we have the evidence base to enable that analysis? If not, what will we need to do to build it up?”

“Your research from 2020 suggested that if everyone were to take up pension credit, for every £1 spent on benefit, there could be a £2 saving in health and social care costs. Can you explain the basis for that assessment?”

“This is a set of questions for Juliet, because they relate to your report. The Social Security Advisory Committee felt there was a tension or even a contradiction between the expected Exchequer saving from the change in winter fuel payment eligibility on the one hand and the cost of increasing pension credit take-up on…”

“Thank you, very interesting. Kingsley, anything to add to that?”

“I myself sat in on a session with Age UK with a client a few weeks ago, and I must admit I thought the help was very necessary. Is there a case for introducing something along the lines of the Help to Claim scheme that is used for Universal Credit, although that does seem to have moved to telephone support rather than …”

“First, I wholly respect the intention behind the Bill; it is a serious attempt to solve a serious problem. I also recognise that what was happening under the Conservatives did not work, and never could have worked even if we had given it 1,000 years. All it achieved was to fuel house price inflation, which has now crea…”

“Age UK in my constituency has told me that the employer NICs rise will cost it £50,000 a year. Does the Minister agree that it is impossible to improve the public sector by taxing the public sector?”

“I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 15 Offence of encouraging or assisting others to commit fraud “(1) The Social Security Administration Act 1992 is amended as follows. (2) In section 111A (Dishonest representation for obtaining benefit etc), after subsectio…”

“Encouraging and enabling people to get back to work is a laudable aim, but how can the Secretary of State assume £5 billion of success in advance of actually rolling out the programme? Surely the right approach is to let the reforms generate savings naturally by a concrete reduction in need, rather than to set an arbit…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. The DWP is making extensive and growing use of algorithms for investigation purposes. Without proper oversight, these systems threaten error, unfairness and bias, which could lead to wrongful debt collection. Our amendment therefore calls for an independent…”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would require that the use of algorithms, algorithmic tools and systems, and artificial intelligence, including machine learning, should be included within the algorithmic transparency reporting standard. That standard, established by the Government, …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Last November, as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I asked the Secretary of State when we could expect to see a decision on compensation for WASPI women. She replied: “There is lots of information to go through. We need to get it right but I wa…”

“I used the word guilt, but can we forget that? I am referring to a case in which a claimant was investigated, so costs were incurred, but they were found not to be at fault, rather than guilty.”