Winter Fuel Payment
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets that the Government approved the use of the urgency exemption in section 173 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to make and lay the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 before the Secretary of State had referred the Regulations to the Social Security Advisory Committee; further regrets that the Government decided it was not necessary to publish an impact assessment for the Regulations, despite, for example, the evidence which shows that living in a cold home increases the risk of serious illness for vulnerable people and those with disabilities and so restricting eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment is likely to lead to increased burdens on the National Health Service; regrets that the Government made time to debate the prayer motion from the Official Opposition without the Social Security Advisory Committee’s Report, and Government response; and calls on the Government to lay those papers before Parliament without delay, and to publish a full regulatory and equality impact assessment for these Regulations.
The decision to remove winter fuel payments has come as a complete shock to millions of pensioners—pensioners on as little as £11,500 a year. We have had no adequate explanation as to why this measure is so urgent. We have had no explanation as to why the Government had to invoke the special emergency provisions that allow them to bypass the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We have had no explanation as to why no impact assessments were provided. This is a major policy change that will remove the entitlement for up to 10 million pensioners, including many who are already in poverty. It is a cut worth £7.5 billion over the course of this Parliament. Rushing such a policy through—without taking time to consider the impacts, ensure effective and fair implementation, and allow possible scrutiny—is impossible to justify. This is not the way to make good policy, and this is not good government.
It is worth considering the conclusions of one of the few bodies that have been afforded the opportunity to scrutinise these regulations. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords has been damning in its criticism of the Government’s approach, and I refer the House to my remarks in the previous debate, when I quoted the Committee at some length. As the Committee points out, such measures would normally be subject to the SSAC’s consideration. That is an important part of the process for any legislation of this nature, as I know well from my time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Conveniently, Ministers have claimed that the measure is too urgent to wait for the SSAC’s scrutiny.
We understand that the SSAC is due to consider the measure tomorrow. Can the Minister commit to the House today that the SSAC’s report, and the Government statement responding to any recommendations, will be laid before Parliament before the regulations come into force next week? As the Lords Committee has pointed out, it would seem wholly inappropriate for the SSAC’s views to be taken into account only once the regulations are already in force. In the words of the Committee,
“It remains unclear what the practical impact of any statement might be on regulations which will have already come into effect.”
If the Government do not intend to provide us with the SSAC’s observations before the House rises on Thursday, why were Members asked to consider and vote on the prayer motion against the regulations today, before the SSAC has met?
The lack of any impact assessment means that we are severely hampered in our ability to scrutinise this measure. We were told in the explanatory memorandum that:
“A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because there is no significant new impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies.”
This seems a bold claim to make about a measure that removes hundreds of pounds of support from some of the most vulnerable elderly households in our country.
The guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is clear:
“For a vulnerable person, living in a cold home increases their chance of serious illness or death.”
It also notes that
“being housebound increases both the exposure to an underheated home and the cost of heating it.”
So can I ask the Minister on what basis it was concluded that there would be no significant impact from this policy on those charities and organisations that support elderly people or on the wider health and social care system? Will he now commit to the publication of a proper impact assessment?
The only basis for the urgency seems to be a claim that this measure is vital for public finances. We have even been subjected to the Leader of the House claiming that it was needed to avoid a run on the pound. I might ask the Minister to comment on that when he appears at the Dispatch Box. The only real relevance of a measure of this kind to the public finances is its impact on the Government’s fiscal rules. Those fiscal rules are based on levels of debt and borrowing at the end of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast period in five years’ time. The rules that the Chancellor has claimed she will sign up to were already being met when the Government came into office, according to the OBR’s own forecasts.
The Government could have opted to bring this measure in next year, with greater time for scrutiny, better notice for pensioners, more time to drive up pension credit uptakes and perhaps time to consider whether there were much better ways of going about it. It would still have been a broken promise, and we on this side of the House would still have opposed it, but it would have been a much better way to make policy and it would still have delivered exactly the same savings at the end of the forecast period.
Ministers will claim that they needed to make immediate in-year savings, but that is based entirely on a black hole that they have confected themselves. The real reason this is being rushed is pure politics. The Government want to rush this measure through while they can try to blame it on their predecessors in order to avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend, like me, find it inexplicable that the Government should fail to go through the proper process when their own research suggested that thousands of people could die as a result of precisely this measure? That is something that the whole House should find deeply uncomfortable.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is a very serious step that the Government are taking. Of all the steps that should be properly scrutinised, surely this is one of them. I remember when I was sitting on the other side of the Chamber, I could barely breathe without the cry going out that an impact assessment should be held. It is extraordinary that on such an important measure as this, affecting millions of the most vulnerable, the Labour party should be utterly silent on this issue.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Old people die in cold homes, and they die particularly if they are very old. Does my right hon. Friend think that if the Government are not minded to change their mind entirely, they might look at those aged over 80? Those people are in receipt of the higher rate of winter fuel payment, and paragraph 3 of the regulations points out that there is a difference between those over 80 and those under 80. That might be one way that the Government could make this slightly less worse than it otherwise is.
Mel Stride
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It has been suggested that the Government are examining ways of ameliorating some of the harshest effects of this policy, and that might be one of the things they consider. On that particular point, we cannot escape the fact that, whatever age people are, over two thirds of those who are currently pensioners below the poverty line will lose their winter fuel payments under the current arrangements.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I have the honour to represent the most remote, the most sparsely populated and the coldest constituency. The Secretary of State, in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), said earlier that the Government would try to maximise the take-up of pension credit, and I accept that, but would they accept that sheer remoteness and sheer distance can militate against people taking up this offer? I ask the Government, via the right hon. Gentleman, to please look at this issue, because it means an awful lot to my constituents.
Mel Stride
I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
The reality is that the Government want to rush this through so that they can blame it on their predecessor and avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done, other than to meet the political ends of the Labour party. They are ripping the plaster off and hoping that the country will have forgotten by the time of the next general election. That is at the heart of it, but we will not forget. We would not have been given the opportunity to debate and vote on this measure without significant pressure from the Opposition and the wider public. This is nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and everything to do with political expediency—no scrutiny, no impact assessment, no notice. This is an appalling way to govern.
Economy, Welfare and Public Services
Mel Stride Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I congratulate everybody who has made their maiden speech in this debate. It is a big moment in one’s parliamentary career, but you are out the other side and nothing will be quite as traumatic as what you have experienced today. To go through them very briefly, I thank the hon. Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould), who told us that her great-grandfather—I think—came from Lithuania to set up a store in the middle of her constituency, which is her connection with it. The hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) paid a very generous tribute to Mike Freer and the dangers and intimidation that he faced. She was also generous to Mrs Thatcher—she is clearly a very generous lady.
The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) paid tribute to Grant Shapps and his numerous and frequent Cabinet positions, as well as his commitment to Ukraine. The hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh) paid tribute to the 190 Labour women MPs who are now in the House, as well as to Harriet Harman. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) managed to weave King John and A. E. Housman into his speech, and informed us that Hollywood is not a city on the west coast of the United States, but is actually within his constituency. If you want to see film stars, ladies and gentlemen, go to Bromsgrove.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) has the peculiarity of having three forebears who are still Members of this House. He was generous to each of them, which shows that he is a wise man and will go far. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) stressed the industrial and shipping heritage of his constituency, and how it was indeed bombarded by the Germans in world war one, but it gave as good as it got. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) praised his predecessor, Matt Hancock, of course focusing on racing and horses—although not, I noticed, on horseplay as such.
The hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) focused, with great pride, on the Hitachi Rail company in his constituency—shortly, I am afraid to tell him, to be seized by the Labour party and nationalised as part of its Government programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Greg Stafford) stressed defence spending, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) leasehold reform and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) the importance of agriculture.
I was out of the Chamber for the speech of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), and the Whip’s note simply says, “He said that there was a cat rubbing his legs”, or something to that effect. [Laughter.] Representing a highly rural constituency as I do, I know that strange things do occur, particularly late on those dull winter evenings.
The hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) stressed the importance of children in care. The hon. Member for Halifax (Kate Dearden) referred to her constituency as the new “Haliwood”, so another Hollywood reference there. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) gave a very witty speech, and stressed the association with the RAF in his commitment to veterans. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) paid tribute to David Morris and his support for the Eden project, and I was particularly pleased to see her do that.
The hon. Member for North Down (Alex Easton) made I think one of the most moving maiden speeches that we have heard in this House for a very long time. He spoke very movingly about his parents, and we all know what pride his dad would have had in the fact that he has been successful in his fourth attempt to join us here in the House of Commons. The hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) referenced the fact that a Roman road—Watling Street—runs through her constituency and spoke passionately about the importance of community and tolerance.
Finally, the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) spoke warmly of Kevan Jones, whom all of us who have been in this House for a while remember with great fondness, and the importance of skilled and well-paid jobs in his constituency. I hope that I have pretty much covered everybody and said the main things that needed saying.
Let us now turn to the debate itself, and it seems to me that the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), while I congratulate her warmly on being the first female Chancellor—I think that is a huge achievement and is to be very warmly welcomed—is, I am afraid, suffering from some level of amnesia. She appears to have forgotten the legacy that we have bequeathed to her. Inflation, which was up at over 10% last autumn, is now back to target. Mortgage rates are softening, real wages have been growing in each of the last 11 months and taxes have been coming down more recently under the previous Government. When it comes to debt, we were on target, as we handed over to the right hon. Lady, to see debt falling in line with her own fiscal target at the end of the fifth year, and we of course have the fastest growing economy in the G7.
One wonders where this amnesia is coming from, and it is of course nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is to cover up the fact that the Chancellor is rolling the pitch to raise taxes. Against all the commitments she made during the general election, she will be raising those taxes in the autumn. It will not be because we have bequeathed her something of which she was not aware in advance. The IFS has made it very clear that the books were “open”, as Paul Johnson said, for all to see.
When it comes to public services, we have a proud record. On education, we have the best readers in the western world. We have been going up the PISA scales for mathematics and sciences, something that did not happen under the last Labour Government. Crime has been halved, broadly speaking, across the period from 2010 to the present day. When it comes to work and welfare, we have a near-record level of employment, and we have a low level of unemployment. And economic inactivity is lower than in every single year under the last Labour Government. What was Labour’s record? When they left office, unemployment was double the level that it is today. Under every single Labour Government in history, unemployment has been higher when they left office than when they came in. Most disgraceful of all is that youth unemployment was up 43% under the last Labour Government; under the last Conservative Government it was down by over 40%.
As for welfare, under Labour there were 1.4 million people languishing on long-term benefits for almost a decade. On pensions, we saw the 75p pension increase and the Gordon Brown raid on private pensions of £180 billion—from which the pension system never fully recovered. It is, therefore, no surprise that, under Labour, we ended up with the fourth highest level of pensioner poverty across Europe. Under Labour there were 1 million more people in absolute poverty after housing costs. There were 200,000 more pensioners in poverty and 100,000 more children in poverty under the last Labour Government than there are today.
We will be a responsible Opposition: we welcome the commitment to growth in the King’s Speech; we welcome the commitment to building houses, as long as that is with sufficient local consent; we welcome the Budget responsibility Bill in principle; and we welcome the announcements that the Chancellor has made regarding pensions: consolidating pensions and ensuring that we get better returns for pensioners and that we invest in long-term pension capital.
But there are too many echoes in this King’s Speech of the Labour of old. The nationalisation of the railways. The consolidation of GB Energy. The long hand of Government reaching—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Labour Members cheer now but they won’t be cheering in a few years’ time. They have short memories; I remember when the railways were nationalised and it was not a pretty situation. They are bringing forward French-style employment laws that will lead to less efficient businesses and to tribunals. They will be increasing the freedoms of trade unions, who are their paymasters. And they will be dispensing with minimum service levels; that will lead to more strikes and the inconvenience of the public, but certainly not greater growth.
What have we heard in the King’s Speech on welfare, one of the biggest challenges of the modern age? Zip, absolutely nothing, nada, diddly squat—absolutely nothing from the Labour party. They talk about moving the National Careers Service from the Department for Education to the Department for Work and Pensions; well, I hardly think that will move the dial. Their back to work plan is named exactly as our back to work plan was that my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt) the shadow Chancellor and I launched last autumn, but it has nothing standing behind it—not the billions of pounds of support we put in place to encourage people to go into work and to transform lives.
All we have heard from those on the Government Benches is a denigration of our job centres; these are described as places of fear by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and by the Minister for employment the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern) as places that do not offer real help. What an insult to the tens of thousands of hard-working people up and down our country who go into those offices to help people improve their prospects and improve their lives. They are against what they call punitive sanctions; it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds to remove those and it will result in less engagement with the help that is available and diminish people’s life chances. There have been no comments whatsoever from the Government Benches on our work capability assessment reforms, that according to the Office for Budget Responsibility will see 400,000 fewer people on long-term sickness benefits. They opposed in poetry; they have to govern in prose. They have not even picked up the pen, but let me be clear: we made mistakes in government and we have paid the price at the ballot box, and it is right that my party now faces a period of reflection and does so with humility. The electorate has spoken, and we must listen. But that is not the same as saying that the vision that is Conservatism has died, even if of late it has been too often obscured. That vision still burns bright. It burns bright as a beacon of freedom, enterprise, opportunity and, yes, stability and hope in the face of—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Edward Leigh)
Order. Will the shadow Secretary of State please curtail his remarks now?