Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I entirely understand why the Government want to get rid of a fuel payment to many people who can afford to deal with even the heightened cost of fuel for heating, but I make no apology for repeating what others have said, because it seems to me that it has to come from right across the House in order for—just possibly—the Minister and therefore the Government to listen to what we are saying. I do not think, from what I heard happened in the Commons yesterday—although I was not in this country—that there is more than a faint hope of that, but it is so important that we should be saying this from across the House.

We know that those eligible for universal credit do not always take it; we have been told that. But we also know of a large number of people who have an income just above universal credit and that is the group about whom I am most concerned when it comes to an increase in heating costs. The triple-lock pension increase does not come until April, but the heating cost is coming now. These people are going to suffer this year and I find it inconceivable that a Labour Government who have done so much for this country in so many ways should put themselves behind depriving ordinary, elderly people—and I speak as a very elderly person—of the opportunity to not have to choose between eating or heating. This seems to me the saddest thing I could possibly think of.

It may be a short-term problem in the sense that the triple-lock payment may help for next year, but, having heard what other speakers have said today in your Lordships’ House, that seems to me unlikely and it does seem that we will need a fuel payment for those on universal credit and those not on universal credit but earning very little more. I absolutely beg the Government to think again.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I commend my erstwhile noble friend the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on her powerful opening of this debate. I agree with the arguments she put forward, as well as those of my noble friend on the Front Bench. There is very little for me to add to what they have already said about this decision that the Government have made and for which they have no mandate. They have not even had the respect to set out a proposal in a Budget in a much more rounded way, as put forward by my noble friend Lady Altmann.

I want to make a bigger point. What a lot of people find quite hard to take at the moment is that, alongside this decision, the Prime Minister has the gall to say that his Government are acting in a way which will restore public trust. He seems not to understand that all of us in the political class over the last few years have lost public trust—himself included—because of our disregard and disrespect for what the electorate have been demanding from us. For this Government now to take decisions that affect people so directly without any notice—believing that such decisions can be justified because the Prime Minister and his Chancellor are convinced that they know best—damages public trust further.

Of course, the impact of this politically on the Labour Party is a matter for it, but I urge the Minister and the rest of her Government to accept the arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Altmann today. I hope that she does not mind me calling her my noble friend; she will always be “my noble friend” to me.

[Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)]

Absolutely. She will always be my noble friend.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I also urge the Prime Minister to drop his misplaced belief that he and his Government are somehow morally superior and are acting in a way which will restore public trust. On the basis of this decision, they are not.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, the decision by the Government to remove the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners is both cruel and reckless. It will mean that many elderly people will have to decide, as others have noted, between heating and eating this winter.

This is an attack on many who worked hard and contributed much to the prosperity of our country over their lifetimes. Many pensioners in Northern Ireland have no alternative to oil-fired burners for heating their homes and, with this Government’s proposal, 250,000 will lose this payment. Citizens Advice, Age UK and other charities across the United Kingdom have warned of the implications of this proposal—that low-income households that are already struggling will face intolerable choices—but their voices and warnings are falling on deaf ears. Surely Ministers must acknowledge that those now forced to live in cold home conditions are at increased risk of serious illness. Vulnerable pensioners and those with disabilities can add to the burden placed on our National Health Service this winter. In fact, it is believed that, through this proposal, many will die.

It is also noted that the Government chose to invoke the emergency provisions that permit them to bypass the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. I thought that this Government proclaimed that, coming to power, they would be transparent and open and would restore integrity to our system of government, but at the very first hurdle they have failed miserably. I hope that the Minister will honour this House by giving us an answer to a simple question: when will they publish the impact assessment for these regulations? That question was asked three times in Prime Minister’s Questions today in the other House, and the Prime Minister gave no answer at all.

This decision was taken by the Labour Government also without consultation with the devolved regions. The action taken by the Government is callous and was not in the Labour Party’s general election manifesto. This is an attack on vulnerable pensioners, and a deliberate one. I know that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated, “We had to do this”, but that is not true. They did not have to do this; they chose to do it.