Lord Fowler
Main Page: Lord Fowler (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Fowler's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Fowler (Con)
My Lords, I welcome entirely what my noble friend said about disabled people and the one-nation ambition. However, in looking at the challenge for the new Secretary of State, surely we should remember that there has always been tension between any social security Secretary and any Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been rougher Chancellors than Mr Osborne. In future, it might be better to sort out the differences, as we did, without the intervention of spin doctors and anonymous briefers.
As to the substance and the issue of raising money, surely the time has come, with the new Secretary of State, to look again at payments such as the winter fuel allowance which, all too often, go to people who by no stretch of the imagination should be receiving social security benefits.