Winter Fuel Payment

Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his qualified support for the policy. The Government absolutely know that their number one concern and mission is to increase the living standards of working people and to do so through increasing growth in the economy, and that absolutely will be the focus of our policies going forward.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the position of the Minister, and it was also good to hear praise for his leadership from the Benches opposite. But does he agree that it is unfortunate to hear attempts to pitch pensioners against workers’ interests in fair pay and stronger employment rights, not least because the workers of today will become the pensioners of tomorrow, and we know that low pay, weak security and poor rights lead to poverty in old age?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend and I agree with everything that she says. I will just add to what she said at the end: low pay and insecurity at work are detrimental to growth, and obviously we need growth in our economy to pay for the benefits that we want to pay to pensioners and others. Once again, the party opposite calls for the growth but they are not willing to support the policies that get us there.