The DWP minister Torsten Bell spoke out in the Commons last week amid increasing calls to introduce means-testing.The DWP minister Torsten Bell spoke out in the Commons last week amid increasing calls to introduce means-testing.The DWP minister Torsten Bell spoke out in the Commons last week amid increasing calls to introduce means-testing.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has broken its silence over potentially “moving to means-testing” the state pension. The DWP minister Torsten Bell spoke out in the Commons last week amid increasing calls to introduce means-testing.

“This is a really important question. The work within the social security system to deal with really low incomes in retirement in the 2000s is being driven by the introduction of pension credit, which makes a real difference,” the Labour Party minister siad.

“That is driving a lot of what you see. Pensioner poverty halves in the 2000s under the Labour Government. That is doing a lot of the work. What is happening now is that the new state pension, by providing a higher floor, is taking more of that work. It is above the pensioner poverty line. It is providing that clear baseline that most people over time will be entitled to.”

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Mr Bell said: “The state pension is doing more of that work than the pension credit was doing in the past and, as you rightly say, the focus there is on the level of that, which is what the triple lock is doing over the course of this Parliament.

“I think that is important to keep in our heads. That is like the macro of what we are trying to do. Again, I think that is basically an issue of cross-party consensus that that is the right framework.

“I know some people call for means testing of the state pension—I believe the Opposition accidentally did a few months back—and I do occasionally hear those calls. Some other countries do have more of that.

“They have less focus on the baseline state pension and more means testing. Australia is the classic example. We are not interested in those. The consensus is that a higher, less unequal new state pension is the right approach to be taking.”

And Bell said: “You are right that one of the ways in which we can afford that higher state pension is by increasing the state pension age, which has been put in place by Governments since the mid-1990s.

“The state is aiming to provide a much higher baseline of income once people move over the state pension age.

“One of the side effects of that is that you get the step up of income when you enter the state pension age, if you are relying on the state, and so that does have consequences, as the state pension age goes up, you do see more people below that not receiving quite as much as they would have otherwise done. I am a realist.

“That is the reality of it.”