Winter Fuel Payment

Andrew Western Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

I am pleased to respond to this important debate. This topic affects millions of pensioners up and down our country. It is one we have debated many times in recent months, and it is right that we do so. Many right hon. and hon. Members have made important contributions that I want to acknowledge.

My hon. Friends the Members for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones), for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) and for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick), among others, talked about the inheritance that we as a Government faced when we came into office and the difficult decisions that have arisen as a result, and they were right to do so. I particularly commend my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), who talked about the work he is doing in his community to drive pension credit take-up. I know that Members across the House are doing the same, and I thank them for doing so.

As my hon. Friend the Pensions Minister set out earlier, the decisions we have made have not been easy, but we have made sure that we have protected those pensioners who need support the most. Winter fuel payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households in England and Wales with someone receiving pension credit or certain other income-related benefits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 or over. The majority of those payments—over £1 million—were paid before Christmas.

Means-testing the winter fuel payment was a choice we had to make to protect the most vulnerable pensioners, while doing what is necessary to repair the public finances after 14 years of the wrecking ball that is the Conservative party. It is the difficult decisions we have taken that mean this Government are able to provide much-needed additional investment in the NHS, which benefits us all, including pensioners who rely on these services. The Government are working hard to reform the NHS in England through the 10-year health plan to build a health service that is fit for the future.

[Wendy Morton]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, while he may well be putting money into the NHS, which is great, his policy towards pensioners, based on the statistics we have seen, means that more pensioners are going into the NHS and putting more pressure on the service? It just does not make sense.

[Andrew Western]

I dispute the right hon. Lady’s statistics. She is right to highlight that there has been an increase in hospital admissions among over-65s, but that is entirely in line with the statistics for people entering hospital in other age cohorts. That is actually a result of the collapse of the NHS on the Conservatives’ watch, which means that A&E is the only option for so many people.

As I was saying, as a first step at the autumn Budget, the Government announced a £22.6 billion increase in day-to-day health spending in England and a £3.1 billion increase in the capital budget over this year and the next. But we know that even with our long-term efforts to rebuild critical public services, pensioner poverty is a very real concern.

[Joe Robertson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Western]

I will make some progress first.

There will always be those who, for whatever reason, have been unable to make sufficient provision for their retirement. The benefit system provides a vital safety net for those on low incomes who need support the most. This, of course, includes help through pension credit, worth on average £4,300 a year and which tops up income, as well as unlocking access to additional support and benefits. We know there are still low-income pensioners who are not claiming pension credit but are eligible to do so and we want everyone to get the support to which they are entitled. That is why, since September, we have been running the biggest ever pension take-up campaign. Around 1.4 million pensioner households receive pension credit, but too many have been missing out. Thanks to our campaign, we have seen 235,000 pension credit applications in the 30 weeks since the end of July last year, an 81% increase on the comparable period in 2023-24. That has led to almost 50,000 extra awards over the same period.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I wonder if the Minister can ask his friend, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), to get in touch with me about how he managed to find out where the 5,000 pensioners are that he was able to write to. I have tried to get that information so I can write to pensioners and tell them about pension credit, but it has not been available anywhere. If he could ask his friend to write to me, I would really appreciate it.

[Andrew Western]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am sure she is capable of contacting my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield herself, but I recall that he did mention that he was working closely with his local authority. I am sure it has been able to assist in that campaign, which he described as a partnership rather than his own work, to drive take-up in his area.

As detailed earlier by the Pensions Minister, we are directly targeting all pensioners who make a new claim for housing benefit, bringing together the administration of pension credit and housing benefit, and we are introducing new research on the triggers and motivations that encourage people to apply for pension credit, to guide future policymaking.

I echo the Pensions Minister’s remarks on the triple lock. It is worth repeating that over 12 million pensioners will benefit from our commitment here. Over this Parliament, up to and including 2029-30, the OBR forecasts that Government spending on the state pension will rise by over £31 billion. And there is lots of other support too, including the warm home discount and the household support fund, available to pensioners.

I will turn now to some of the other specific points raised during today’s debate. Several Members raised the delays in pension credit processing. It is important for me to recognise here the sheer volume of applications the Department received during this period. We understand that pensioners expect their applications to be processed quickly and accurately, which is why we deployed over 500 extra staff to process the huge increase. The latest statistics also show a positive picture: outstanding claims have reduced from 85,500 in mid-December to just 33,700 by 23 February, which is in line with the Department’s usual number of claims awaiting processing.

Some hon. Members raised the issue of an impact assessment at the time of the policy decision. In line with the requirements of the public sector equality duty, an equality analysis was produced as part of the ministerial decision-making process. That was published on 13 September and placed in the House of Commons Library. It assessed the effects on individuals and households according to protected characteristics set out under the Equality Act 2010. They do not include impacts on the NHS.

Other hon. Members have quoted figures on the poverty impact of the changes to winter fuel payments. I simply note that yes, internal Government modelling was produced as part of routine policy advice. Given the interest from the Work and Pensions Committee and the public interest, the Department published this modelling for transparency in a letter to the Select Committee in November. However, it is essential to note that this modelling is subject to a range of uncertainties, which should be taken into account when interpreting the results, and that it does not take into account any impact of the measures we are taking to increase pension credit take-up and ensure pensioners get the benefits to which they are entitled.

[Harriet Cross]

My understanding is that the impact assessment showed that about 100,000 pensioners would be put into poverty. I was just wondering what range either side of that figure would be acceptable to the Minister.

[Andrew Western]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that I would never want to see those numbers increase, but that number is significantly better than the 300,000 pensioners who went into relative poverty under her Government.

To those asking about Government action with respect to energy costs, I say that the Government recognise that affording energy bills is a struggle for many and that energy debt is rising. The Government have continuous engagement with energy suppliers and have discussed the support they have in place to support vulnerable consumers, including pensioner households. We are continuing to deliver the warm home discount for eligible low-income households and have recently published a consultation on its expansion, which would bring around 2.7 million more households into the scheme, pushing the total number of households receiving the discount next winter up to around 6 million.

I will turn briefly to some of the contributions from Members on the Conservative Benches, and in particular from the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who, interestingly—given the description used by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) of this side of the House—I felt expressed faux outrage at this decision. It is rich from a party that, as I said, pushed 300,000 pensioners into relative poverty, made pitiful efforts to address pension credit take-up, made a 2017 manifesto commitment to means-test the winter fuel payment and let the value of the winter fuel payment fall by around 50% during its time in government.

The shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions went on to make repeated reference to Labour Members’ consciences, which was relatively offensive, but nothing compared with being called the “nasty party” by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire. I will not accept those sorts of attacks from the Conservatives—the party of Downing Street parties, the party of the inhumane Rwanda scheme, and the party that drove so many to food banks. My conscience is clear, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is appalling to imagine that theirs is the same after what they did to this country over 14 years.

I listened very carefully to—[Interruption.] I am being chuntered at from a sedentary position about the household support fund. I remind the shadow Secretary of State that it was not fully funded by the Conservatives on a multi-year basis, and it is this Government who have provided that certainty to local authorities.

I listened very carefully to the speech from the shadow Health Secretary and, indeed, the more than dozen speeches from Opposition Members, and I am still no clearer on what their policy actually is. We had one Member standing up and saying means-test, another standing up and saying tax the winter fuel payment, but neither shadow Secretary of State present bothered to stand up and tell us what the Conservatives’ policy is. If they want to stand up now and say that they would reverse this policy decision, I would be happy to give way to either of them. Feel free. Their silence says it all, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We have made the hard choices necessary to bring the public finances back under control after 14 years of Tory misrule.

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

At what point would the uptake of pension credit eliminate the savings from cancelling the winter fuel payment? At what number would the uptake overtake that payment?

[Andrew Western]

We have never suggested that they would, and the Minister for Pensions addressed that in his opening statement. The savings put forward do take account of that. I have to say that, in accepting that intervention, I was hopeful that, finally, one Tory would come forward with an actual policy in this area—I would say that I am disappointed, but it is only to be expected. Pensioner households who need support the most will continue to get winter fuel payments. We are getting more and more people on to pension credit, so that they can get winter fuel payments and increase their weekly income.

This motion calls for an apology. The only people who should be giving an apology to pensioners and to this country are those in the Conservative party, for the mess that they left behind.

Question put.