Speeches by Milne.

“Good morning. The Mayfield report emphasises working with vanguard employers to work out best practice in a positive feedback intelligence loop, which could take some years, but of course the other challenge is actually implementing practical measures across all the other companies that are not in that group. Do you th…”

“Following on from the previous question, financial abuse between couples sadly does not always end in separation, and many women struggle to access child maintenance safely. Is the Home Office working with DWP colleagues to strengthen income assessments, such as by using His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs data, and to r…”

“I agree that you need to think about the purpose, but the bill at the end is not irrelevant.”

“I think you have partially answered this question, but what are the arguments for targeting support at defined groups such as carers and people with long-term health conditions or disability, as opposed to increasing the standard rate for everyone on UC aged 66 and above?”

“The IFS has suggested two specific options, with one costing around £200 million, if you target just those on disability benefits, versus £600 million if you go for a wider group. Overall, the potential savings from increasing the age are £10 billion. Do you think that is an acceptable price to pay or mitigation?”

“Thank you very much.”

“Do you see a potential conflict or challenge? If you are setting a lifestyle adequacy, it is open-ended and hard to set its limits, whereas if you say, “I’m going to track inflation,” or, “I’m going to track wages,” it is a precise objective. Do you see a potential tension between those two?”

“So the answer is no?”

“Maybe so, but there is still an essential flip, whatever the tone in which it was done, there is that—”

“In practical terms.”

“Related to that, do you think we should keep the triple lock?”

“To follow on from some of your previous answers, the coalition Government did two big things in pensions. One was to signal the rise in state pension age, which I suspect you are rather glad of, actually. The other, of course, was the triple lock. The two things are related. There is a trade-off or a tension between ha…”

“Through this Parliament. Who knows beyond that?”

“That would be close to your retirement.”

“Good morning. Many people argue that in order to understand whether we have the right pension, we need to understand what the objective is. Is it about setting a quality of life? Is it about tracking against some other measure, like wages or inflation? What is your view on whether we need some measure of adequacy?”

“Your decision to provide indexation on pre-’97 benefits for FAS and PPF members from January 2027 is very welcome, but the lack of any retrospectivity means that the indexation will apply only to a fraction of their original entitlement. Would you continue to consider the case for a one-off uplift to at least partially…”

“Just the state pension.”

“Do you support the idea of the Pensions Commission setting some adequacy measure or lifestyle measure, even if it might be fulfilled by tracking—”

“To go back to possible mitigations, what would be the pros and cons of providing additional support through the working-age benefit system as we rise to 67?”

“The Government want to cut funding for level 7 apprenticeships and redirect resources to younger groups, but bodies such as the Royal Institute of British Architects tell me that young people are unlikely to enter professional training in the construction sector, because funding will be withdrawn at the later, more exp…”