Winter Fuel Payment

Ben Maguire Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Fuel poverty is an enormous issue in my constituency due to a combination of demographics, geography, the housing stock and, indeed, living standards. I rise to speak on behalf of the many hundreds of my constituents who have written to me to express their deep concern about the Government’s policy. I do not have time to read out extracts from their very moving emails, but I know that Judy, Kenneth, Pat, Tom, Robert and Gwen are all deeply concerned about the impact that it will have. They have reported their health issues, their partners’ disabilities, and the fact that they are just over the limit and will not be able to access the winter fuel payment. That will force them into the classic, depressing choice between heating and eating that this country must avoid.

I have voted against the Government’s policy today for three reasons. First, it is socially regressive and will increase poverty among about 2 million people, nearly 1 million of whom ought to be getting pension credit. The Labour party’s efforts are nowhere near fast enough to avoid increased poverty this winter.

Secondly, the policy is economically innumerate. It will not save the money that the Government argue it will save. There are far better ways to save that money, and to fund the action that is certainly needed to support our public services.

Thirdly, the policy is, frankly, politically inept. I really cannot believe that this Government have spent political capital on making such an unfortunate and unjustifiable political decision.

The winter fuel payment is not, and never was, a perfect policy. I have some sympathy with Members who have spoken today about the inequity of the inclusion error, whereby those who have significant wealth were still receiving the payment, but that has been replaced by a policy with an enormous and dangerous error of exclusion for those 2 million people who will no longer get the support that they need.

[Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Of course millionaires do not need the winter fuel payment, but does the hon. Member agree that there must be support for pensioners who really need it, rather than this cruel cliff edge, especially for those living in rural areas such as my constituency who are not connected to the mains gas grid?

--- Later in debate ---

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Mid Norfolk is a profoundly rural constituency, with 130 villages and four towns, and in that very rural constituency, as with all rural areas in this country, people are paying a surcharge because of energy costs and because of rurality. There will be colder weather, and many of my houses are not on the gas grid, while rural areas traditionally have lower incomes and we have an elderly population.

The Treasury, very helpfully—it is a shame Ministers did not read it—did a piece of work last year looking at the risks of rural poverty and the higher risk of rural areas falling into real poverty. The Treasury’s own figures showed that the average household at risk of poverty in rural areas needs an extra £800; or in layman’s terms, there is a two and a half times—or 250%—higher risk of rural houses falling into rural poverty. So I find it completely extraordinary that Labour, which in government professes to care about poverty and berated my party when in government about the risks of rural poverty and of pensioner poverty, has decided as their first act to punish people in rural areas.

It is because of those rural risks that, earlier this year, I and a number of colleagues set up a fair funding alliance, supported by Action with Communities in Rural England, the Countryside Alliance and rural bodies. Higher fuel and energy prices are hitting rural areas, and we would have hoped that this Government might have listened. I am proud that the Conservative party in government upgraded pensions, protected the triple lock and took 200,000 pensioners out of poverty.

[Ben Maguire]

The former Member for Thornbury and Yate introduced the triple lock, which was actually a Liberal Democrat policy. Would the hon. Member care to correct the record on that point?

[George Freeman]

It was my good friend the now noble Lord Willetts in a coalition Government with the Liberal Democrats, and I will happily debate with the hon. Member some of the brave decisions we took.

The point is that this party, the Conservative party, protected pensioners, protected the triple lock and lifted 200,000 people out of poverty, but we see this Labour Government make this decision. The Minister put it very clearly earlier. This is an attack on people who own their own homes, people who have retired in rural areas and those just over the threshold, and in Labour world they are millionaires. This will not be forgotten by people in my constituency, the low-income rural pensioners who have saved up to be able to afford their own home and are now being clobbered. It is unfair, it is unjust, it is unjustifiable, it is unprecedented, and I urge and beg Ministers to think again.