House of Commons · Ministers' Questions
Monday 31 October 2022 · 2 questions
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Question
What recent estimate he has made of the number of pension credit claimants.
Answer from Laura Trott
As of the latest public data of February 2022 there were 1.38 million pension credit claimants.
How accurate was this summary? (1 = poor, 5 = spot on)
The MP acknowledges the previous Minister's work but notes that despite this, pension credit take-up is still relatively low in his constituency which has a higher proportion of over-65s than the UK average.
Question
I welcome the new Minister to her place and hope she can continue the excellent work done by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) in this area. Despite all that excellent work, however, take-up is still relatively low, and my constituency has 20% more over-65s than the UK average. Will the new Minister meet me to discuss how we might be able to make pension credit at least in part an automatic benefit so that struggling pensioners can get the money they are rightly entitled to?
Answer from Laura Trott
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point but it is difficult to enrol people automatically on pension credit given the data the Government hold. I am, however, keen to see how increased data sharing could be used to produce a larger number of claims.
Not addressed: Difficulty in automatic enrollment due to government-held data constraints
How accurate was this summary? (1 = poor, 5 = spot on)
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