Winter Fuel Payment

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about transparency, and he recognises that this policy has had an impact not only on pensioners, but on other parts of Government, and therefore on other constituents. It is another thing that I hope the Government Back Benchers in the Chamber are taking note of, to pass on to their colleagues who, for some reason, have chosen not to be present to discuss this topic this afternoon.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being exceptionally generous in giving way. Does she agree that the Government need to be completely transparent about the costs of this policy? It has been estimated that it will cost the NHS—already pressed—£169 million. We know from NHS England that 100,000 extra people aged 65 or over have been through A&E this relatively warm winter. Is this policy not a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

[Helen Whately]

My right hon. Friend, given his experience in this area, will know very well the connection between heating and health, particularly for older people. The Government must surely ensure that they understand the knock-on impact of the cut to the winter fuel payment on older people’s health, and therefore on admissions to hospital and on hospitals’ ability to cope. As we know, there are then the consequences for older people, who, when admitted to hospital, often end up having long hospital stays, with significant loss of independence and reduction in quality of life as a result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Torsten Bell]

No, the change that we were elected to introduce was to save our NHS and to return our economy to growth so that we can raise living standards for pensioners and for workers right across the country. That is the change that we were elected to deliver and that is what we are going to do.

[Dr Murrison]

The Minister is being generous in giving way; congratulations to him on making the best of a bad job. He knows that old people die in cold homes. In 2017, the Labour party did some research on which to attack the Conservatives, which showed that 4,000 old people would probably die in the event that we removed winter fuel allowance; we did not do that. I wonder whether he got his officials to repeat that research and, if so, what it showed.