Winter Fuel Payment

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

One thing that was ill-thought-through was the Liz Truss mini-Budget and the £22 billion black hole in the public finances, which is why we had to take the action that we did. It might be nice if the noble Lord took some responsibility for what we inherited. As I said already, when we came into office, we had to take a number of very difficult and urgent decisions to put the public finances back on a firm footing. That involved difficult decisions on welfare, on tax and on spending, and one of those was means-testing the winter fuel payment. We have listened to the concerns about the level of the means test and we are now able—all the while still means-testing the winter fuel payment, because that is the right thing to do—to extend eligibility so that this winter, all pensioners with incomes up to and including £35,000 will receive it.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by wishing my noble friend the Minister best wishes for his birthday today. He has the special treat of an Urgent Question and a Statement on the spending review—what more could anyone ask for?

I very much welcome the decision to reintroduce the winter fuel payment. In answer to the Question, my noble friend said that anyone with income above £35,000 would not receive the payment. There is one problem with that, in that some forms of income are not taxed. Someone with a substantial cash ISA—I understand that there is a Member on the Liberal Benches who has £1 million in his ISA; he has made no secret of it, and presumably receives a very substantial income—with a taxable income of less than £35,000, would presumably still receive the winter fuel allowance, or is some step going to be taken to avoid that problem?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his question and for his birthday wishes—that was very kind of him. Obviously, we had to achieve the right balance between a simple system to administer and getting the support to those who need it most. The system that we have come up with sticks with the existing rules of the tax system and, I think, achieves the right balance, as I described.