Winter Fuel Payment

Andy MacNae Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to take part in this debate, and this is an extremely pertinent time for it. We all hope we are through the worst of the winter—although in my part of the world nobody puts their snow boots away until we have got through lambing season, because lambing storms usually bring snow—but we need to know, as we get through the winter and into the better weather, what the impact of this policy decision has been on our pensioners, on our health service, on A&E admissions and on other allowances and benefits. We need to know the overall cost of the decision.

The hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), who is no longer in his place, suggested that he has more pensioners in his constituency than anyone else. Having checked with the House of Commons Library as I sat here, I assure him that Staffordshire Moorlands has more, because we have 22,197 compared with his 20,909. Of those 22,197, over 20,000 of them have been affected by this decision, and Staffordshire Moorlands, as the name suggests, is not exactly warm. Last winter, we saw a low of minus 14°C; this year, we saw only minus 5°C —it has been a relatively mild winter.

It is incredibly important that we find out exactly what impact the decision has had. At the pensioners’ fair I held in Cheadle back in November, pensioners were terrified. I am holding another fair next week on 28 March in Leek, and I want to hear from my local pensioners what impact the decision has had on them, how it has made them feel and how often they did not switch the heating on.

I am proud that I was part of a party in government that introduced the triple lock. The suspension of the triple lock has been referred to. Those were exceptional circumstances. That was at a point when we had had furlough and earnings had gone down by 20%—that is how the statistics worked. When people came off furlough and the earnings went up by a much higher number, that was the statistical anomaly that meant giving pensioners the increase in line with earnings would not have reflected reality. Earnings had not gone up by that amount; it was that furlough had ended.

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

Can I be clear in my mind that what the right hon. Lady is saying is that at a tough time, the then Government took some tough decisions, and that resulted in the pension level being £560 lower now than if they had not made that decision—a difference far greater than the winter fuel payment amount? That Government made tough decisions at a tough time that are costing pensioners money today.

[Dame Karen Bradley]

What was happening then was once in a generation, and it was not a real increase in earnings; it was merely that people had gone from 80% of their earnings back to 100%. When earnings had gone down by 20%, we did not cut the state pension but continued to increase it in line with the triple lock.

I want to make a point about universal benefits as opposed to means-tested ones. The Labour party seems to think that a universal benefit is bad because somebody who does not really need it might receive it. I take the other view: it is important that we get to as many people as possible who need it, and if that means a few people at the top end of the earnings level get a benefit they might not need—

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I know that, for the Government Front Benchers, I may well be repeating myself, but I think I need to: £300 may not seem like a lot of money, but believe you me, for the thousands of pensioners in my constituency and up and down the country who have missed out on their winter fuel payment, it is a lot. As we have heard this afternoon, and as Labour Members know, it is the difference between heating and eating.

What does the Minister say to someone who is terminally ill or has a life-threatening illness, is just over the pension credit limit, and misses out because of the Labour Government’s callous policy? Does the Minister accept the finding that the chance of an over-65-year-old being admitted to hospital or A&E this winter increased by 9% compared with 2023-24—an increase of 76,190 patients? Has he explained to pensioners that a report commissioned by Labour in 2017 claimed that 3,850 pensioners’ lives would be at risk if the winter fuel payment were scrapped, and that scrapping the winter fuel payment would cost the NHS an extra £169 million a year? It is no wonder that the Government did not want to publish an impact assessment.

[Andy MacNae]

The right hon. Lady is making an eloquent point about how important every pound is for a pensioner, and £300 is a lot of money for a pensioner. But is £560 more or less than £300, because that is what decisions taken by the previous Government in 2021 have cost pensioners this year?

[Wendy Morton]

I completely disagree with the hon. Gentleman, and my right hon. and hon. Friends have made clear the position on that.

Let me return to the point we are debating, which is the winter fuel payment. I would like to think, or even hope, that the Government would have a rethink, although it appears that might not be the case. What is worse is that they seem uninterested in assessing the impact of this decision. They will not do it now, they did not do it before they made the decision, and it seems they will not even consider delaying the measure. Pensioners have faced a cliff edge and they could not plan for this, which makes it even harder.

To add insult to injury, more than 30,000 pension credit applications are waiting to be processed. I have been submitting written questions to the Department to try to flush out how many extra staff it has recruited. My figures are different from those given earlier by those on the Front Bench. My numbers are 1,045 full-time equivalent members of staff, and there is still a backlog. Winter is not over and pensioners are still waiting, so why do this Labour Government insist on penalising those who have worked hard all their lives?

Pensioners have worked hard, tried to do the right thing by their families, paid their bills, and perhaps saved a little bit of money, only to be kicked at a time in life when they really need that little bit of help, and when it would make a massive difference in so many ways. Labour Members chose to scrap the winter fuel payment for 10 million pensioners, and the really disappointing thing is that I have sat on these Benches and I have heard not one bit of humility. All I have heard is arrogance—

Social Security

Andy MacNae Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

In the interests of brevity, I associate myself with some of the remarks made by my colleagues on the Government Benches on the desperate financial legacy we have been left and the nature of cliff edges within the benefits system. We should do better than have cliff edges in the future.

Let us remind ourselves that the subject of this debate is the Opposition motion not to means-test winter fuel payments. Let us face it: that means maintaining payments to millions of people, including some Opposition Members, who are happy to admit that they do not need it. Given the dire legacy, the fragility of the economy and the immediate need for in-year savings, this is an emergency measure. With all the other calls on public spending, I cannot see how such payments are the best use of £1 billion or more.

At the same time, I know that many of my constituents on state benefits, with small private pensions, simply do not have the income to meet their everyday needs. They fear not just the winter cold, but every bill. Many have written to me with heartbreaking stories of everyday struggles just to maintain the basic qualities of life. We have heard some mitigations, and we will hear about more. Let us remind ourselves that that includes the fact that the poorest pensioners will retain their winter fuel payments. Let us remind ourselves that people just above the threshold can apply for household funding support through their councils. My office in Rossendale and Darwen is already working hard with residents to make sure that everyone in need gets the support they need. We have already helped a number of pensioners to get the benefits they deserve and need.

At the same time, we need to recognise that none of these steps, including the winter fuel payment itself, addresses the fundamental issues of pensioner poverty. We have to ask how this country can be spending more than £150 billion a year on pensioner payments when millions of Britons—people who have done the right thing all their lives, worked hard and paid in—are still living in deep poverty and unable to afford the most basic comforts. That is not something we should simply accept; such deep pensioner poverty should be a national embarrassment.

Successive Governments have ducked the issue. Winter fuel payments are one example of the sticking-plaster politics that has sought to kick the can down the road, responding to a problem but never fully addressing it. The benefit is poorly targeted, and for those who need it most, it is not nearly enough to make the difference. To truly address pensioner poverty, we need a fresh approach and to be willing to challenge the assumptions of the past, with ambitious policies that target the causes of poverty, not just the symptoms. Home insulation and lower energy prices with GB Energy are just two examples, but we can and must do so much more. We can only deliver real change with an economy that is fixed and stabilised. That is what this Government are utterly committed to.