“Steve, you’re an above-average pensions minister!”

In a world where praise can be a bit hard to come by, I took that as a compliment.

But he quickly said:

“No, I didn’t mean that you’re good at your job, I meant you’ve survived longer than most pension ministers!”

And when I inquired, I found out that I was, indeed, the 11th different pensions minister in the last 14 years.

So it is hardly suprising that pensions policy has been a bit piecemeal and messy over the years.

Every change with the best of intentions, but put it all together and the whole isn’t as good as the sum of the parts.

Instead, we have a fiendishly complex system that no-one understands that doesn’t deliver enough either for today’s pensioners or tomorrow’s.

But being appointed a new minister at the start of a new Government is a huge opportunity.

A chance to set out a long-term vision of where we want pensions to be, and to introduce measures in both state and private pensions that move in the same direction.

So let me tell you what we’ve achieved in the last 16 months.

Our first priority is today’s pensioners.

For the last thirty years, the value of the basic state pension has fallen.

Since the link with earnings was broken at the start of the 1980s, the pension has fallen further and further behind the earnings that it is meant to replace.

We put a stop to that.

Labour only said they would restore the link by the end of the next Parliament.

But the Lib Dem manifesto said we would do it straight away, and I was delighted that this commitment was carried over into the Coalition Agreement.

Indeed, we have gone one step further.

We will increase the basic pension by the higher of the growth in earnings or consumer prices, so in times like this when wage growth is sluggish, we won’t seek to take advantage of this through lower pension increases.

And to go further still, if both earnings and prices are growing slowly, we will increase the pension by at least 2.5% – our so-called Triple Lock guarantee.

There will be no Gordon Brown 75p increases under this Government.

It is important that we communicate to people quite how dramatic the Triple Lock promise is.

We reckon that this new policy, compared with the policy of the last 30 years, will have put an extra £45 billion into state pension spending by the middle of the next decade.

At a time of austerity, this is a huge financial commitment to pensioners of today and tomorrow and we should make sure everyone knows the crucial role our party played in securing this guarantee.

As well as boosting the value of the state pension, we’ve had to look at the age at which it is paid.

One in six of us alive today in this country will live to the age of 100, and one in three girls born today will reach that age. So we’ve had to tackle the difficult issue of state pension ages – something previous government’s ducked.

The Government has already made it clear that the date when we reach 67 and 68 will have to be brought forward. But we also recognise that pension age changes need to be fair.

So although we stand by our plans to equalize men and women more quickly and to move to age 66 more quickly, I can assure you that we will do all that we can to ease that transition for the particular group of women most affected by the change.

And Labour left us some other ticking timebombs to diffuse.

Before the election they increased the Cold Weather Payment, payable to the poorest pensioners when it is freezing cold.

What Labour forgot to tell those pensioners was that this ‘special offer’ was a bit like a ‘closing down sale’ – available before the election but gone afterwards.

So when we looked at the books we discovered that the Labour spending plans – shockingly – slashed the Cold Weather Payment from £25 per week to just £8.50 per week.

We took the view that the money that is paid when it freezing cold to the most vulnerable pensioners and disabled people should be our priority.

So we reversed the cut, set the rate at £25 per week, and in the cold winter of 2010/11 made more than 17 million cold weather payments. That’s £400 million spent making sure the most vulnerable were kept warm last winter.

Conference, do you really think that would have happened if we weren’t in this government?

Real help to real people.

But as well as doing our best for today’s pensioners, we also want a pensions system fit for today’s workers – tomorrow’s pensioners.

The foundation of income in retirement has to be the state pension.

But at the moment, we recognise that the state pension is not enough to live on.

If all you have is a basic state pension of just over £100 per week, the DWP will top you up through complicated means-testing to an income of around £135 per week.

Wouldn’t it be better if people who had contributed through their lives, either through paid work or caring or in some other way, could be guaranteed a pension clear of the basic means-test, a foundation on which they can build ?

And that is what we want to deliver – something that has much in common with the long-cherished Liberal and Liberal Democrat goal of a Citizen’s Pension – being delivered by Liberal Democrats in Government.

Earlier this year I published a Green Paper setting out options for reform of the state pension.

Overwhelmingly, the preferred option was the simple, single decent state pension – something Liberal Democrats have argued for over decades, now at the forefront of government thinking.

It wouldn’t be a king’s ransom.

But it would cover the basics.

It would treat men and women equally for the first time, and would value unpaid caring work just as much as a high-flying city job.

That would be a truly radical reform, and it is one that Liberal Democrats could be proud of.

Now so far I’ve mainly talked about the ‘P’ of DWP.

Which is perhaps not suprising given my day job as Minister of State for Pensions.

But I also involve myself in the decisions taken by the ministerial team across the whole of DWP – that’s what you do when you’re “the only Lib Dem in the village”!

And there is work going on about which Liberal Democrats can feel proud.

The first is the introduction of the Universal Credit.

For many years Liberal Democrats have talked about integrating the tax and benefits system.

But to be honest, integrating the benefits system with itself would be a start.

And that is what the Universal Credit does.

It brings together benefits such as Income Support, Child Tax Credits, Working Tax Credits, income-related Jobseekers Allowance and income-related Employment Support Allowance into a single benefit.

Designed to make sure that work pays.

Designed to respond to your changing circumstances month-by-month, not waiting for end year reconciliations or the tax credits people to write to you years after the event to tell you you have been overpaid.

Streamlining benefits and making part-time work viable will help many of the most vulnerable people in our society and the new system will take hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

At a time when public money was tight, the Government was right to invest in the Universal Credit, and Liberal Democrat backing for Iain Duncan Smith’s plans was crucial in bringing this scheme to fruition.

The second innovation that we should welcome is the Work Programme.

For years we have had endless back to work programmes where people on benefits were sent on ‘schemes’ so that the provider could tick a box and get paid.

That is all going.

Instead, the welfare-to-work providers – a mix of private companies, charities and public bodies – will find that most of their payment depends on getting someone into a sustained job.

One-size-fits-all schemes are out.

Meeting the needs of the individual in front of you is in.

And the providers will have unprecedented freedom to tailor the help they give.

They won’t need DWP approval.

If the person in front of you needs a fork lift truck qualification, you can help pay for it.

If they need help with basic numeracy, you can provide it.

Whatever will help the individual to move from long-term receipt of benefit to sustained work.

This will truly transform the lives of thousands who have been let down in the past by inflexible schemes designed in Whitehall.

Real help, for real people.

Much of what you hear about the DWP is about cuts – and much of it exaggerated.

If you listened to Labour you’d think that our policy programme was slaughter of the first born – and that was just in year one!

For example, take housing benefit.

Cash spending on housing benefit at the start of this Parliament was around £22bn.

And at the end of this Parliament it will be around £22bn.

Yes, reigning in the remorseless growth in spending at a time when the public finances are under pressure.

But still preserving a comprehensive system of support.

Likewise on disability benefits.

Disability Living Allowance cost £12.3bn in current prices at the start of this Parliament.

At the start of the next Parliament the new ‘Personal Independence Payment’ will cost exactly the same in real terms – £12.3 bn.

Yes, we have had to take tough choices about restraining the growth of benefit spending.

But always, seeking to do so fairly by protecting the most vulnerable.

I wouldn’t put my name to anything else. And I know you wouldn’t either.

Now, let me take you to next Summer – London, 2012.

Years of preparation.

And finally, the moment arrives and the starting gun is fired.

Yes, at long last, the first people will be automatically enrolled into workplace pensions.

Now I know that some people will have other things on their minds next summer, but for me the lasting legacy of 2012 and beyond will be literally millions of people getting pensions for the first time.

Between 2012 and 2016 we will automatically enrol over 10 million people into workplace pensions, many of whom are currently building up no pension beyond the state pension.

Their employers will put money in, they will put money in and the government will put money in.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help many women workers, many part-timers, many young people and many low-paid workers into pension saving.

They will still be free to opt out, but if they want more than the basic minimum in retirement and to benefit from a contribution from their employer, this will be their chance.

Real help for real people.

We also need to make sure that people are getting good value for money in their pensions, an industry which has not always given itself the best reputation.

So on a whole range of issues I am working with colleagues within DWP and across government to protect the individual consumer and make sure that they get the best possible value for money.

My in-tray currently includes:

• charges – making sure that as much as possible of the money you invest turns into a pension instead of being eaten up in charges;
• small pension pots – many people have lots of different pensions with lots of different employers or different pension companies; well, rather than people have lots of small ‘stranded pots’ that they can’t do too much with, I want to help people put those pension pots together to give – to use a technical term – ‘big fat pots’; we will be producing a document later in the year that will set out some of the options;
• good value when you draw your pension – many people build up a pot of money but don’t get enough pension out of it; for all sorts of reasons they simply go to their own pension company for a pension, possibly missing out on a much bigger pension by shopping around; I am working with the Treasury and the insurance industry to see if we can do better than this;
• and fourth, transfers – at the moment, growing numbers of workers who have company pension rights are getting letters offering them a deal to give up their generous pension rights in return for a much riskier sort of pension plus a cash incentive; Some would call it a “bung”. Whilst firms have every right to talk to their workers and ex-workers about getting their pension rights in a different way, we need to make sure that people are making well-informed decisions and not losing out on valuable pension rights without realising it.

On all of these issues my agenda is about making sure that people get the best possible value for money out of their hard-earned pension savings – real help, for real people.

So conference, I urge you to hold your heads up high.

With a huge budget deficit to fill, it would have been easy to slash and burn the social security budget.

But that is not the agenda at the DWP. That is not our agenda.

Almost every part of the system is being reformed.

To make life easier for the individuals who have to interact with the system.

To provide real support for people who are looking for work.

And in my area of pensions, to give dignity and security not only to today’s pensioners but to generations to come.

It is a privilege to be in government, but I never forget whose side I am on.

On your side, working to deliver an affordable social security system which supports those most in needed, gives a leg up into work for those who can work, and builds a solid foundation for a secure retirement.

It is a big and bold agenda, and one that Liberal Democrats can be proud of.

We have also restored the link between the Basic State Pension and earnings which was broken thirty years ago. Labour had thirteen years to do it themselves and did nothing. Our ‘triple lock’, to increase pensions by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5% will benefit a typical newly-retired pensioner by around £15,000 during their retirement. We are committed to the state pension, and committed to improving it.

But we also need a state pension system that works for those who have yet to retire and who will be facing a very different world. They will, on average, be working much longer and be retired longer than their parents and grandparents. Workplace pensions are far less generous than they were in the past. Few young workers are saving anything at all for their retirement. We need to put a system in place fit for the future.

A flat-rate state pension worth £140 per week in today’s money will provide a firm foundation for saving. This is crucial as we go through the process of automatically enrolling millions of workers into workplace pensions. They will be free to opt-out, but their employer will put money in, they will put money in, and tax relief will go in. People need to be confident though that their savings won’t be swallowed by means testing. A flat rate pension set above the rate of the means-test means you can be confident that it will pay to save.

Those who were heading for pensions below the poverty line stand to benefit most from this reform. It will also end the penalties facing women who stop work to bring up children or care for a family member. While those years are credited for the Basic State Pension, no provision was made for them prior to the introduction of the State Second Pension. It is time their contribution to society is fully recognised in the state pension. A year spent caring for a child or elderly relative will be worth the same as a year spent running a global corporation as far as the state pension will be concerned.

The idea of a single decent pension is of course nothing new to party members. This proposal is very similar to ideas that we as Liberal Democrats have talked about for years. The fact that the Government has now included this idea in a Green Paper shows the difference we are making through being in the Coalition. We are not just talking about good ideas but are actually delivering them within government and it is a huge privilege to be a part of that process.

I wrote in November that there is much in the Bill that we as a party should welcome. The Universal Credit sits comfortably with our own policy to introduce a single working-age benefit to replace the current nightmarishly complex system.

Today’s Bill lays a framework for a radical improvement in the way welfare works in this country. It will be simpler, clearer, and will target resources at those who need it most – 85% of the increase going to households with the lowest 40% of income – while fostering responsibility and independence.

Universal Credit will be flexible and dynamic, taking into the account the month-by-month changes every person experiences. This will be in marked contrast to the fiendishly complex tax credits system where people faced recovery of overpayments years after they received the cash. In all, this new system will lift 950,000 people – including 300,000 children – out of poverty and 2.7m households will be better off as a result.

The vigilant among Lib Dem campaigners will notice several measures speculated on in the press have been left out of the Bill. In particular, I am pleased to say that Housing Benefit is not going to be cut after one year for JSA claimants as was suggested. The Government listened to calls from Liberal Democrats and others and these changes show the significant impact that we are having on government policy at the highest levels.

Obviously in the context of an unsustainable government deficit there have been several difficult decisions to make. With that in mind it is remarkable that we are able to introduce reform at all, and even more so that the government has pledged over £2 billion extra funding for the Universal Credit to ensure it is a success. We will continue to ensure that the most vulnerable in society, especially severely disabled people are protected. In particular, the replacement for Disability Living Allowance will focus help on those most in need of help with the costs of ensuring their personal independence.

The flexibility of Universal Credit provides a framework for a welfare system fit for the modern world and its values of fairness and responsibility are deeply Lib Dem. I am proud that Liberal Democrats have had a crucial role in shaping the impact of the policy, and I hope that all our supporters will be pleased with the Bill today.

Steve Webb is Minister of State for Pensions

As a party we have long talked about integrating the tax and benefits system. As a first step, we surely need to integrate the benefits system with itself. The Universal Credit approach sits comfortably with our own policy to introduce a single working-age benefit, and will provide a basic allowance topped up by additional elements payable to meet the costs arising from caring and family responsibilities, and disability and housing needs.

It will seek to support people both in and out of work, and will replace tax credits, housing benefit, income support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance and income-related Employment and Support Allowance. For anyone who has ever had to help constituents with tax credits under-payments and over-payments, the prospect of streamlining this system is a big prize.

I believe that we can emphasise some real advantages to these reforms:

• This policy is about supporting people, especially those on the lowest incomes. The Government has pledged to spend £2 billion on these reforms in the period up to 2014-15;
• Labour’s efforts to reform welfare over the last 13 years created greater complexity in an already bewildering system, with increased form-filling, mass means-testing, and the undermining of incentives to save. The Universal Credit will streamline and simplify the system so that people are better able to know where they will stand if they take a job;
• With a single benefit, take-up will clearly improve, helping to reduce in-work poverty;
• Current high withdrawal rates of benefits as someone enters work or increases hours means that many are afraid to change their circumstances in case they end up with less money at the end of the week;
• Under the new rules, people will be able to keep much more of their wage before the benefit taper kicks in – this may be especially helpful to some disabled people who may find part-time work is most suitable;
• There will be no cash losers – where the new, simpler system would produce a lower entitlement than the present system, current recipients will be protected.

Two areas where Liberal Democrats may have questions are sanctions and mandatory work activity.

The media has focused on the most severe of the proposed sanctions, but the whole point of sanctions is that they act as a deterrent. The most severe sanctions are intended only to be applied in exceptional circumstances where people systematically and repeatedly abuse the system. There are appeal rights if people feel sanctions have been applied unfairly and there remains a system of hardship support for the most vulnerable.

The use of sanctions will be up to the discretion of Jobcentre Plus advisers. They will use their judgement as to whether someone has a genuine reason for not taking a particular job, such as that it cannot be made to fit with their childcare arrangements.

Mandatory work activity will also be at the discretion of the Jobcentre Plus adviser, and is aimed at a small group of people who have been stuck on benefit and are feeling completely demoralised. The adviser will have to believe that it is in the interests of the individual concerned to try something different.

This will be a time-limited four week period of activity that aims to break the spiral of despondency; to get people out of the house, into a routine, put something new on their CV and see that they are contributing to society. It is not intended to be a job in itself, nor as a sneaky way of replacing paid jobs that are being cut elsewhere in the system. Getting someone involved in community work on a committed basis for four weeks will also have an impact on the minority who are quietly working whilst claiming out-of-work benefits.

All the details of the proposals are set out in the White Paper, and will come before Parliament in a Welfare Reform Bill in 2011. These changes will reduce child poverty, improve benefit take-up, provide a better return to work and more security for those who take a job, without reducing support overall for those who are unable to work. I believe that Liberal Democrat campaigners should be happy to tell their constituents about these plans as one of the positive achievements of the Coalition government.

Steve Webb is Minister of State for Pensions

I have been aware for some time that the Lib Dems’ Facebook campaign on getting the Climate Change Bill toughened up hasn’t really caught fire in the way that I hoped. So I was delighted to be able to bring together a cross-party group of people who share the same commitment to the environment, but also have expertise online / in communications, or who are well networked in the online green world.

The ten of us (plus me) agreed that we would prioritise a campaign to get ‘real people’ to go and see their MP, explain why 80% cuts in C02 by 2050 are needed, and then report back to a new website – www.canvassyourmp.com – which goes live in ‘beta’ version today, 9th June, to coincide with the Second Reading of the Climate Change Bill. We will report on whether the MPs committed to back 80% or not, and will keep the site regularly updated.

To make this happen has involved a lot of teamwork:

• more than a dozen volunteers have spent time this weekend looking up MP contact numbers and surgery arrangements to go on the site; one was an American I have still never met who looked up 30 MPs for me!
• a contact of the 10 bloggers – Jez Swinscoe – generously offered to design and host the site – on a wind-powered server no less!
• people have already started blogging about the meeting and spreading the word:
> http://beingunchained.blogspot.com
> http://greenormal.blogspot.com
> and of course here: http://webbsteve.blogspot.com

The group are kicking around all sorts of ideas to promote the campaign – one suggested MPs wearing “80% less” for a day… – so it will be exciting to see if this really takes off.

We’ve already had a fantastic response, with over 700 people signing up as ‘fans’ and the number is rising hour by hour. If you are on Facebook (or want to sign up) and want to back the campaign, you can visit http://co2cuts.notlong.com

One of the goals of the site is to identify which MPs would support an amendment to the Climate Change Bill to replace the 60% CO2 cuts by 2050 target with an 80% figure. We want people to ask their local MP that direct question and then report back to the site with the answer. We will keep running totals of which MPs are on board and hope to build a coalition of support to get the Bill changed.

We want to make this one of the biggest campaigning Facebook groups to show that we don’t think the Government is doing enough on climate change, so please spread the word to your friends.

You can also download a button for your website here.

Steve Webb is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs

The Government’s Climate Change Bill, which proposes a statutory target of a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, is currently being considered by the House of Lords. Most environmental campaigners, leading scientists and even the Prime Minister, seem to accept that 60% is likely to be too little, too late.

The Liberal Democrats are therefore arguing that the Bill should be amended to give a statutory target of 80%, and we are seeking to build a coalition of MPs of all parties who share our concern in order to get the Bill amended when MPs consider it later in the Spring.

The Government’s position is reflect in my recent exchange with Hilary Benn in the Commons:

Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): In the light of the latest scientific evidence on the speed of climate change, what is Ministers’ latest assessment of the adequacy, or otherwise, of a 60 per cent. CO2 reduction target?

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman will have seen the speech that the Prime Minister made in November. The target of at least 60 per cent. was set in the light of royal commission advice, but the Prime Minister has acknowledged, as we all do, that the science is evolving – we read the reports – and that is why he said that it is now felt that the reduction might need to be increased to 80 per cent. That is also why we will ask the Committee on Climate Change, as one of its first tasks under its new chair, to advise on what the 2050 figure should be. To make a point that relates to a number of issues to do with the Bill, having established this important, authoritative and influential body, we should let it do its job and give us the advice, so that the Government can then take the final decision on what to do.

Our view is that this approach is too cautious. The balance of the evidence is moving in the direction of the case for faster action, and we cannot wait for the ‘great and the good’ to tell us what is becoming increasingly clear.

To register your support for the campaign we have set up a Facebook page for this purpose. By joining you help to show the strength of support for the campaign. You can also use the site to report back on what your local MP said when you asked if s/he would back an amendment to put 80% in the Bill.

Please spread the word so that we can build up a level of support that even the Government cannot ignore!

Steve Webb is the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs

Given that opinions vary considerably both between parties and within our party about new nuclear, I thought it might be helpful to offer a bit of background to our judgment that new nuclear plants are not what we need in response to the energy issues facing the UK.

The first thing we all want to see is security of energy supply, but new nuclear does not really address the key concerns. As far as ‘keeping the lights on’, the shortfall in total capacity is likely to occur long before new nuclear could be seriously on stream – realistically put at 2020 at the earliest. We need new energy sources long before 2020 and time and money diverted to prepare for new nuclear could actually be a distraction from this goal. As regards problems with overseas energy sources, the main concerns are oil and gas imports, but new nuclear electricity is not much of a substitute for either unless our transport and heating needs start to be met in very different ways.

The other goal is to get our energy in a way that drastically reduces CO2 emissions. Leaving aside the fact that new nuclear build and operation is hardly ‘carbon-free’, there are better ways to achieve this desirable goal. These include much greater use of renewable sources (as many other European countries are doing), serious action on energy conservation and efficiency, and a serious look at ‘carbon capture’ technologies which could mean our remaining gas and coal stations could be operated in a much less damaging way.

The Government claimed yesterday that the new nuclear stations would need no public subsidy, but the small print already shows that they are paving the way for backdoor subsidies through pricing and help with clean-up costs. It is hard to believe that private companies will invest for decades in the face of uncertain liabilities, especially when the Government has still to be specific on exactly how the waste will finally be disposed of.

The statement yesterday was a clear signal to the nuclear industry that the Government will give them the guarantees that they seek, and those guarantees have an economic value which would be better spent on alternative strategies that would yield faster results and be more flexible and more sustainable.

Steve Webb MP is Lib Dem Environment & Energy Spokesperson. The Liberal Democrat petition against nuclear power is at ourcampaign.org.uk/no2nuclear

1. Ming Campbell
2. Steve Webb
3. Jo Swinson
4. Lembit Opik
5. Stephen Williams
6. Lynne Featherstone
7. Julia Goldsworthy
8. Willie Rennie
9. Sarah Teather
10. Chris Huhne

(Rankings are based on number of friends in their official profiles on Facebook, as at 30 July 2007)

So I’ve worked with a couple of colleagues to look up over 600 MPs from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties (excluding the Speaker and Deputy Speakers) to see how many have Facebook profiles.

It’s not an exact science, since if someone’s profile is private you can’t be sure if it’s the real thing or a spoof, but this is the tally:

Conservatives:
24 MPs out of 195 on Facebook (12%)

Labour:
47 MPs out of 352 on Facebook (13%)

Liberal Democrats:
25 MPs out of 63 on Facebook (40%)

If any Tory or Labour commentator has a longer list of their own party’s MPs on Facebook than is reflected in these figures, and wants to send me the list of names, I’ll be happy to update the figures.

Among the Liberal Democrat MPs, leader Ming Campbell has over 2,000 friends from around the country and has an active profile. Personally, I’ve concentrated on connecting with my constituents, and have been encouraged to have more than 1,000 Northavon twenty-somethings willing to be my Facebook friends.

Can we draw any conclusions from this?

Being partisan for a moment (!), it would seem that for all the ‘WebCameron’ hype, the wider Tory Parliamentary Party doesn’t seem to be embracing social networking in a big way.

I also think that it is no surprise that it is Lib Dems who have taken social networking the most seriously. Lib Dem philosophy and our way of doing politics sits well with the Facebook ethos of being accessible, removing barriers to communication and reaching out to young people. As the figures show, it’s clearly not an exclusively Lib Dem thing, but it’s good to see our party leading the way.

Coming soon … the league table of Liberal Democrat MPs and who – after Ming – has the most friends!

Steve Webb is MP for Northavon and Chair of the party’s general election manifesto writing group. He blogs at www.webbsteve.blogspot.com

Update: The BBC and The Guardian, and ThisIsLondon have picked up this story.