Energy: Winter Fuel Payment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Lord Kinnock
Main Page: Lord Kinnock (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Kinnock's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(13 years ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, clearly, one can look at how one treats this, but essentially it is a simple payment. It is one of the universal payments to pensioners along with the state pension, additional pension and passported benefits such as NHS prescriptions. That is how it is designed. It would be rather complicated and expensive to tax it.
Lord Kinnock
My Lords, the Minister appears to be very sympathetic to the idea of changing the system, and I am not taking into account the season of the year. Will he reconsider the possibility of a levy on higher-rate taxpayers? After all, what is good for King Wenceslas should be good enough for 81 per cent of us.