Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House is concerned about pressures on pensioner households this winter with high and rising fuel prices; notes that the Winter Fuel Payment will be £50 lower in the winter of 2011-12 than in each of the last three years for a pensioner aged 60 or over and £100 lower for those pensioners aged 80 or over; and calls on the Government to review the impact of its decisions on Winter Fuel Payments and VAT, and to announce in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement urgent steps to ease the burden on pensioner households.

It is a pleasure to move the motion standing in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. colleagues. This motion is about a life and death issue. Fuel poverty and the effects of cold winter weather on the elderly are a lethal combination. Only today, the Office for National Statistics has published figures for cold-related deaths for England and Wales. That report shows that in 2010-11 there were some 25,700 excess winter deaths among old people in England and Wales, which is roughly the same number as last year. However, last year’s figure represented a big increase on the previous year. More people are dying as a result of living in a cold house in the United Kingdom than are dying in road traffic accidents each year.

The figure for excess winter deaths is defined by the Office for National Statistics as the difference between the number of deaths during the four winter months and the average number of deaths during the preceding autumn and the following summer. In the Conservative party manifesto for the 2010 election, these figures were described as “a national disgrace”, and that is absolutely the correct description. This is nothing short of a national catastrophe that affects every region of the United Kingdom. The motion before the House therefore calls for the Chancellor to take

“urgent steps to ease the burden on pensioner households”

right across the United Kingdom.

I want to refer particularly to the situation in our own area of Northern Ireland as an example of the dire circumstances facing many of our senior citizens living in cold houses.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I shall certainly support the right hon. Gentleman in the Lobby tonight. Surely, however, the problem is poor pensioner households. The difficulty with the winter fuel allowance is that everybody over 60 or 65 gets it, irrespective of their means, and as a result it has become a generalised payment that helps the rich but does not give enough to the poor.

[Mr Dodds]

I understand that argument entirely. Indeed, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change pointed to it in its report back in 2010, and I will come on to deal with the targeting of resources and tackling fuel poverty. As for cold weather payments, there is clear evidence that many pensioners do not claim all the benefits to which they are entitled. The benefit of having a universal system is that it reaches all those who need it. I will deal with the issue that the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted in more detail later.