Work and Pensions
Ashley Fox Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Patrick Spencer
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of means-testing the winter fuel payment on levels of pensioner poverty.
Sir Ashley Fox
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of means-testing the winter fuel payment on levels of pensioner poverty.
Torsten Bell
This Government have run the biggest ever take-up campaign on pension credit, which is worth around £400 on average to those eligible.
[Official Report, 3 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 534.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell):
Oral Answers to Questions
Ashley Fox Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)
This Government have run the biggest ever take-up campaign on pension credit, which is worth around £400 on average to those eligible. It also opens the door to extra support and means that 1.5 million pensioners will continue to receive the winter fuel payment. The modelled impact of the decision to target the winter fuel payment at those who need it most does not account for the measures that this Government are taking to raise pension credit take-up.
Torsten Bell
This Government and the important charity that the hon. Gentleman mentions are here for the most vulnerable pensioners. That is why we are targeting the winter fuel payment at those who need it most, and why we will uprate all the state pension elements by over 4% this April. He raises the case of the national health service and how important it is to older generations, but it is his party that drove the NHS into the ground over the last 14 years.
Sir Ashley Fox
Labour-controlled Bridgwater town council is increasing its council tax precept by 40%. That means that pensioners in my constituency are suffering from not only the loss of their winter fuel allowance, but an enormous tax rise. What advice does the Minister have for those of my constituents who do not qualify for pension credit, and who now face the loss of the winter fuel allowance from this Government and a huge tax rise from their Labour council?
Torsten Bell
I encourage all pensioners to consider whether they are eligible for pension credit, but also to look for the wider support that can be provided via the household support fund and the warm homes discount. I say gently to the hon. Member that the driving up of council tax bills is a direct result of the destruction of local government finances by the Conservative party over 14 years.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ashley Fox Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Can the Secretary of State confirm whether she will maintain strong sanctions against those who are capable of working but choose not to?
Liz Kendall
If you can work, you must work, and if you repeatedly refuse to, sanctions will remain, but I know from young people in my constituency that they are desperate to get the skills and opportunities that they need. Unlike the Conservative party, that is what our youth guarantee will deliver.
Income Tax (Charge)
Ashley Fox Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
This is an old Labour Budget. It increases spending by £70 billion a year, funded by an extra £40 billion in taxes and £30 billion in borrowing—I am sure the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is very proud of the Chancellor. This will lead to higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher national debt—not my words, but the view of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
If the British people had voted for such a Budget, I would not like it, but I would not complain. In its manifesto, the Labour party said it would increase spending by £11 billion. It said its proposals were fully costed and fully funded. That is the mandate on which it was elected. So where does the figure of £70 billion come from? Even if we believe the fairy story of the black hole, 11 plus 22 does not equal 70. When my party said that Labour’s plans would mean a tax rise worth £2,000 for every working family, the Chancellor called us liars. In fairness, we were wrong. The actual figure turns out to be £3,600. Ever since the election, the Chancellor has repeated the canard that her poor economic inheritance justifies these enormous tax and spending increases, but we know that Labour always intended to increase taxes and borrowing by far more than it admitted to the British public.
This is a Budget of broken promises that will hit my constituency hard. Bridgwater is home to many small and medium-sized businesses. Those SMEs are run by people who work hard, generate wealth and provide employment for others in their community. Their reward from Labour is a tax rise that will cost them £758 a year to employ someone earning the new minimum wage. That will reduce the number of people employed. It will reduce private investment.
Labour’s increase in inheritance tax is a spiteful attack on those with family businesses and farms. It is an attack on aspiration and enterprise. This Government have little understanding that even modest farms require a great deal of capital in the form of land, buildings and machinery. If this is taxed at 20% on the death of the owner, that will lead to family farms being broken up, which will damage our rural communities and undermine Britain’s food security. Labour’s policies will damage Britain and make us all the poorer.