Member

I move on to the comments from my noble friend Lord Davies on the average uprating to a state pension. It is not possible to make direct, like-for-like comparisons between state pension amounts received under the pre-2016 state pension system and the new state pension. Under both systems, the actual amount people are entitled to receive varies according to their national insurance record. It is not the case that everyone in the new system gets more than everyone in the old system, and not everyone who gets to state pension age after the 6 April 2016 receives the full rate of the new state pension. I fear that giving an average increase would therefore risk simply mixing apples with pears, but, if it would be helpful, I can certainly write to my noble friend with a calculation that basically divides the increased expenditure by the number of beneficiaries. If he would like apples over pears or something of that nature—I will stop talking—I would be happy to write to him with whatever we can do on that.