Caroline Nokes
Main Page: Caroline Nokes (Conservative - Romsey and Southampton North)Department Debates - View all Caroline Nokes's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 days, 3 hours ago)
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Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the second Government Minister we have heard from the Dispatch Box today, yet only moments ago we saw the Chancellor sitting on the Front Bench. It was the Chancellor who chose to spend billions on setting up Great British Energy. It was the Chancellor who chose to spend billions giving pay rises to their union paymasters. It was the Chancellor—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I thank the hon. Lady, but she will be aware that that is not a point of order; it is more of a speech that she is seeking to make. Perhaps she will find an opportunity to contribute in the debate.
James Murray
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member who just intervened, and indeed everyone on that side of the House, might like to reflect on what the legacy of the last Government truly was. It was one of irresponsible overspending, of uncosted commitment after uncosted commitment, and of Ministers running away from taking difficult decisions. As a direct consequence, when we came to power we were faced with a £22 billion black hole in the public finances for this year alone.
James Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Frankly, it is time for Conservative Members to recognise and accept what they have done to this country, and to show some contrition and accept responsibility. However, no matter what the Conservatives choose to do, we are getting on with the tough decisions that are necessary in government. By changing the winter fuel payment and making it means-tested, we are beginning to take the necessary steps to address the black hole they created, while protecting the most vulnerable in society.
The Prime Minister has said that we must be prepared to be unpopular if we are to govern responsibly, which means facing up to tough challenges and tackling them head-on. The motion laid by the Opposition sets out several “regrets”, but they have never once shown regret for all the reckless decisions they took and the damage they did to our public services, public finances and economy. Our task now in government is to fix the mess they made and to give our country the chance of the better future we deserve.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrat party.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the House is not counted, and the matter of quorum is not a relevant consideration at this time and therefore we shall move on.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I have no choice but to put a three-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches before I hand over to the next speaker, which I am very sorry to do. Members will be aware that more than 40 of you wish to take part. I call Priti Patel.
Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)
I am glad that we are having this debate. Perhaps the Opposition and parts of the media are bored facing something that they have not seen for years—Government Benches packed full of Members representing all parts of the United Kingdom who respect each other and support the Government—because they have stoked a frenzy that I fear is at risk of obscuring the most important arguments for the changes that we are debating.
Yes, there is the economic argument, which matters. As the Office for Budget Responsibility and Institute for Fiscal Studies have recognised, this Government inherited public finances in a shocking state, in
“one of the largest in-year overspends outside of the pandemic”
in history—or, as one Member put it earlier, an “accounting error”. Unlike the rapid succession of Conservative Chancellors, our Chancellor has levelled with the British people and been transparent about the nation’s finances. Restoring stability means hard choices. This is not the first, and it will not be the last.
However, it is not the economic case that I wish to emphasise today, but the principled one. Let me make a general point about the arguments we make in politics. Sometimes we politicians can be too quick to hold up our hands and say that we have no choice—the lawyers required this or the economists required that. That can leave voters frustrated: “Why vote if the people we vote for are not in charge, but lawyers or economists are? Can the people we elect not control the things that affect our lives?” To restore trust in politics, we must show that politics matters. That is why it is important that we articulate what we do in terms of principles and choices.
To govern is to choose. Targeting winter fuel payments is a choice. However difficult and necessary, it is the right choice for two principled reasons. The first is about the moral purpose of the policy. Gordon Brown designed the winter fuel payment to ensure that nobody was at home cold because they could not afford to turn on their heating. It was a time when state pension rises were miserly and, as many found, insufficient to heat their homes. But let me note that pensioners were better off after the last Labour Government. One million were lifted out of poverty by 2004. The changes we are debating today do not move from that position. In a time when the state pension has risen by £900, and will rise again by as much as £400, the changes target the winter fuel payment based on the principle of need. That is the right principle.
Let me be clear: I do not believe that taxpayers—
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
You say that our Chancellor and the Prime Minister are not here on the Government Benches, but where are your leader and your shadow Chancellor? They are not here either. You talk about means-testing being right: we have a difficult financial situation and difficult decisions that we have to take, so the right hon. Gentleman seems to agree with us on that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I appreciate that passions are running high this afternoon, and that there are many new Members in the House, but when we use “you” and “your”, we are referring to the Chair. There are good reasons for why we direct debate through the Chair. Please can Members remember that?
Sir Roger Gale
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I stand chastised. The Leader of the Opposition was in the Chamber earlier this afternoon, but I saw no sign whatsoever of the Prime Minister. However, the answer to the hon. Lady remains the same: the responsibility for this policy lies directly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister, and they are going to live to regret it.
Sam Rushworth
I absolutely do, and Members may recall that I came to this House last week and asked the Chancellor a question about my own constituents. I represent the snowiest and coldest constituency in England, and I have had deep concerns about those pensioners. However, I have studied the detail and listened to pensioners in my constituency. In the last week alone, it has turned out that several people who have come forward to me expressing concerns about this policy are people who could be claiming pension credit but are not.
I want to make a broader point about the winter fuel allowance. The winter fuel allowance was introduced under the last Labour Government in 1997, when the state pension was £3,247 a year. If that had increased at the rate of inflation, today it would be £6,200 a year. Thankfully, it is more than twice that. [Hon. Members: “Because of us.”] Conservative Members say that it is because of them, but, again, they may want to look at the record. In fact, under both the previous Labour Government and the previous Conservative Government, the state pension increased at above the rate of inflation, and I absolutely welcome that. The winter fuel allowance, however, has not increased for 20 years. So the winter fuel allowance, in real terms, has become less and less year after year. The point I am making is that we need to consider our people. If the Conservatives’ argument is that, after 14 years in government, people on the full state pension are £100 away from death and destitution, what have they been doing for 14 years?
We need a new settlement for the economy, and this Government are actually answering the concerns of my constituents, who live in cold, stone-built, badly insulated homes, and who lost out when the previous Government chose to cut the funding available to insulate homes. This Government are setting up Great British Energy, which will help to cut bills over the long term. People are poor and struggling to pay their bills not because we do not give away enough taxpayers’ money in small pockets of benefits here and there. What we need are higher wages and better pensions, and I have been convinced by the Chancellor’s arguments that, under this Government, the pension will rise at or above the rate of inflation year on year, while energy bills will fall.
Finally, my constituents would not thank me if I did not take steps to stabilise the economy, because we need to get NHS waiting lists down and we need—
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I have had a short time in this place, but I already know that he often sits in the Chamber and listens to everyone: to Members across the House. I listened to his points as well and will make these points to him. On this issue, like so many others, when it comes to our economic inheritance—which is a £22 billion in-year black hole—we have to make difficult decisions. We can choose to ignore the situation we are in and duck those decisions—the well-trodden path that was too often taken by the last Government—but the price of entry to that path is not free. There is a cost. It means accepting a failing economy and failing public services. It tries to shift the problem again and again to future generations. It is an easy path, but not a responsible one.
The alternative is that we govern as we campaigned—not just on economic stability but on credibility and truth in politics—and are honest with people about the mess that we are in and, crucially, about the path that we will take to bring about brighter days: to lower waiting times in our NHS, to get more teachers into our schools and more police on our streets, delivering again for people across the country.
Failure to deliver has become the norm; that must change. If we ignore the problems, we cannot fix them. Since records began, no Government front-loaded spending so much to leave the cupboard so bare for the second half of the year. That was an easy path, but not a responsible one. I believe that Opposition Members know that.
Indeed, there have been calls over the years from Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members to target winter fuel payments to those most in need. The Government are combining responsibility with compassion, and I know—
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance. I was under the impression that in the Chamber we should refer to Members, Friends or even the constituency. Is that correct?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The hon. Member is absolutely correct. May I just helpfully point out to all hon. and right hon. Members that, in seeking to make repeated interventions, they are actually cutting into each other’s time? I have made the point previously about the correct way to address each other, through me as Deputy Speaker. Interventions need to be a great deal shorter because they are just cutting into the time for the debate and there are an awful lot of Members who wish to contribute.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like advice from the Chair, please. Reportedly, more than 200 Labour MPs received more than £2 million in donations before the election from the trade unions. Before other Members give speeches about issues such as public sector pay, would it not be in order for them to declare that interest at the beginning of their speeches?
Madam Deputy Speaker
As the hon. Member will know, it is for individual Members to declare their interests, if one is applicable.
Laurence Turner
I declared my background in the trade union movement, and I note that the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) wrote the manifesto, which he stood on, that proposed cutting the winter fuel allowance.
Now that the winter fuel allowance is to be means-tested, we must boost the uptake of pension credit. I welcome the measures Ministers have announced today, so that the allowance can be protected for the very poorest pensioners.
Dr Mullan
Does the hon. Member agree that it is deeply disingenuous for him and other Labour Members to talk about the drive to increase the uptake of pension credit? He knows full well that if the Government were able to do that, it would wipe out the saving that they are claiming to make. They do not actually want people to increase their uptake of pension credit, because the Government would not save any money.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I remind the hon. Member that the word “disingenuous” is almost akin to suggesting that someone is lying. Perhaps he would like to withdraw his remark.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I will reduce the time limit still further, to two minutes, after the next speaker.
Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)
My volunteers and I have been out speaking to residents across my constituency every weekend since the general election. Like many others, Earley and Woodley is a very diverse constituency with diverse needs. Last weekend we spoke to relatively well-off pensioners who told us that they feel it is right that winter fuel payments be means-tested and that, with their sense of dignity and generosity, they do not need state aid in this respect.
Pensioners in other parts of my constituency are less well off, and I was shocked to find that one in three pensioners in my constituency who are eligible for pension credit, which is roughly 1,000 pensioners—as well as one in three across the UK who are eligible for pension credit, or 880,000—do not claim it.
Over the weekend I held one of my first constituency surgeries at the Whitley community development association café. A staff member told me that they talk to the pensioners who come in about the struggles they face with the cost of living crisis that has unravelled over the last few years. They talk to them about support, but these elderly people respond, “No, I don’t need benefits. I don’t need help.” I recognise that as part of the broader societal stigma around being a recipient of benefits and state aid, which this Government must challenge and defeat.
A compassionate, generous and dignified society recognises when people require help, when people do not require help and when people can help others, and accepts that people sometimes fall on hard times due to an accident, bereavement, illness or other reasons outside their control. For those who need help, it is not undignified to seek it. In fact, it is very important that every pensioner listening to my speech, whether they are in my Earley and Woodley constituency or elsewhere in the UK, knows how to seek help and can seek it if they need it. I am determined that we bring about a dignified and fair means-tested benefit and tax system. Fairness and dignity will keep that system functioning.
Members on both sides of the House have talked about civility. We too often hear about individuals and societal groups being pitted against each other. Pensioners in Earley and Woodley are part of the broader community, and they have children and grandchildren who work in hospitals, who require care, who are supported by teachers, who take buses and trains and, yes, who avail themselves of all the means of support provided to maintain our flourishing and cohesive society. It is unacceptable—
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
It was only two months ago that Labour won a majority in the general election on a message of change. But in those two months the new Labour UK Government have refused to abolish the cruel two-child benefit cap and now seek to take away winter fuel payments of up to £300 from millions of pensioners across the UK, by limiting it to recipients of pension credit. Well, nothing has changed.
Some 68% of households in Carmarthenshire lived in homes with poor energy efficiency in 2022, and 60.4% of households in my Caerfyrddin seat live off the gas grid, often relying on oil as a heat source. But the price of oil is very volatile, and in winter we can see it going up by 20p or 30p a litre, causing uncertainty for people budgeting over the winter.
Not heating a home can have serious consequences. A cold home brings with it a higher risk of stroke, respiratory infection and falls or other injuries. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition estimated that nearly 5,000 excess winter deaths were caused by living in cold homes during the winter of 2022-23. And many older, vulnerable people have higher energy costs due to health reasons.
It is a shame that the Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire misspoke earlier this week, as the consideration of other options, such as a social tariff or different ways of means testing, would be welcomed. As constructive criticism, can the Government bring the winter fuel payment within the definition of a taxable income to ensure that pensioners get what they need?
In closing, I call on colleagues to consider whether they can justify—