Alicia Kearns
Main Page: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)Department Debates - View all Alicia Kearns's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 days, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
I rise to speak on behalf of the 20,800 pensioners in Rutland, Stamford and the Harborough and South Kesteven villages who will lose their winter fuel payment this winter. This decision affects millions of people who bought into our country’s social contract: you work hard, you pay your taxes and when you grow old, we will support you through your retirement.
I make two requests of the Labour Government, although I know that they will both be rejected. First, I ask them to delay implementation to give people more time to prepare. Older people are some of the most financially cautious in our society. They save, they go without, they avoid debt, and they give what they can to their children, their grandchildren and their friends in need. A delay of a year would give people the time to claim pension credit, if eligible, to face the upcoming increase in energy bills and to plan for the next winter.
Secondly, I ask the Government to give an exemption to anyone suffering from a chronic or life-shortening illness. Since this cut was announced, I have heard from so many people, including Di, who emailed me out of concern not for herself, but for her husband Jeff, who suffers from cancer and has to wear three layers of clothes all year round, even in the summer. As Di put it, the decision—and it is a decision by the Prime Minister—is penalising the ill. Her “hubby will suffer” and she is shattered.
We will hear a lot from the Government about hard choices, but if I were asked to choose between heating the homes of the elderly, cancer sufferers and dementia sufferers or giving a no-strings-attached pay rise to train drivers already on nearly £70,000, the choice would be pretty damn obvious to me. But then, ASLEF did not donate to my election campaign.
People say that we can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its most vulnerable and its eldest. If we apply that test to this cut, anyone with a heart will know that it is wrong. I, for one, will never vote to deprive the most vulnerable and our elderly of warmth.