Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to begin by talking about energy bills and putting on record my thanks to Helen and Joanna at the North Lancashire citizens advice bureau, whom I spoke to today specifically about energy bills for my older constituents. I thank them and all the other staff at the CAB, who support my constituents right across Lancaster and Fleetwood on a whole matter of issues, as people often feel they have nowhere else to go.

On energy bills, one thing that has not been mentioned much is something that affects my rural constituents. I have been approached in the past couple of weeks by a couple in the Ellel area of Lancaster who have turned off their oil-fired heating as there is no price cap on heating oil and with the prices of oil trebling they have been left particularly vulnerable. Often such people are in poorly insulated houses off the grid, and I call on the Minister to do something to support rural pensioners who are feeling this acutely.

These issues are not just being faced in the rural areas of my constituency. A pensioner I was speaking to on Russell Grange Lane in Fleetwood, a much more urban area, is struggling with the rising energy bills. By way of an example, let me say that she lives alone and is receiving the state pension, and her gas bill has risen recently from £85 a month to £114 a month. That is an increase of 34%, but her pension is going to rise by only 3.1%, or about £5.50. She is really concerned about how she is going to be able to afford food, as food prices are going up, and whether she is going to be able to make ends meet. Pensioners spend twice as much of their money on energy bills as the under-30s, so this is a cost felt acutely by pensioners.

Helen told me that we are now in the worst situation since she joined the CAB in 1992. She said that in most cases there was almost nothing they could do to help clients whose benefits or pensions are not enough to live off and that they could only refer them for emergency food parcels. They have then exhausted that limited charitable help available. That is probably reflected right across the country. I do not think that Lancaster and Fleetwood is particularly unique in experiencing that. What has changed in the six years I have represented the constituency is the number of pensioners approaching me to say how much they are struggling. I have noticed that increasing in the past couple of years and, in particular, in the past couple of weeks. A man approached me in Macbeth Road to tell me that he felt utterly betrayed by the breaking of the triple lock on pensions and how it means that his pension will not keep up with rising costs. People feel like this not just about energy costs and pensions, but about, for example, the betrayal on the TV licence for the over-75s, which was a point raised recently with me by a constituent from Agnew Road.

With almost one in five pensioners living in poverty—of course, that will be many more if this Government do not take action—I will continue to support my constituents as best as I can, as will my local food banks, the citizens advice bureaux, churches and charities such as Age UK Lancashire. I will do things such as promote the awareness of pension credit. With around 850,000 older people currently missing out on that benefit, many of them will be in my Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency, and I will do what I can to raise awareness.

As Martin Lewis said on television yesterday, we can only do so much to try to teach people to save money if the amounts are getting smaller, bills are going up and petrol prices are rising, because the rest, frankly, is politics. I wanted to speak in this evening’s debate to highlight the fact that this effect has been felt right across my constituency, from the urban Warren area of Fleetwood right through to rural areas in Ellel just outside Lancaster, which makes me think that it is probably being felt right across the country. We now need Government action to tackle pensioner poverty, which is acute and real.

[Several hon. Members rose—]