Social Security

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

If I can reach out to the Labour party for a moment, there is a case for having a serious debate about the total package that we give to pensioners. We could have done that in a sensible way—I have raised it myself, having questioned some aspects of the triple lock a couple of years ago. It is a very difficult debate, but I understand that the total package paid to pensioners as a proportion of gross national product must not keep increasing every year, because that is the way ultimately to bankrupt the country. We need to have a social contract between older people like myself and younger people, particularly when it comes to house building. I understand all that. That is the debate we should have been having today, and we could have combined as a House to have that debate and protect the public finances.

However, that is not the debate we are having. We are debating the action of a Government who have not just gone against a manifesto commitment—there was no manifesto commitment to do this—but actually gave a specific promise that they would not do it. This is surely a question of public trust. They gave an absolute guarantee and I think that is why people are so upset.

I know that some people will say, and here I declare an interest: why should somebody like me receive the winter fuel allowance? All right, let us have a serious debate about that. But what about the people—these are the people I feel so strongly about—who have worked hard all their life, have served their country, receive a very small occupational pension, do not receive pension credit and are looking after every penny, and suddenly, because they do not and cannot receive pension credit because they have a very small occupational pension, their winter fuel allowance is taken away? That will make a real difference to them, so we really have to consider them, and have a serious debate about how we are going to protect those people.

May I make one suggestion to the Government? The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) alluded to the fact that there should have been a serious debate about tapering, or something similar. I will tell the House what this is all about. This is about a punishment beating. The New Labour Government decided they had to make their case that the public finances were in a dire state and that there was this—[Interruption.] Hang on—there was this £22 billion black hole. We spend £1,200 billion every year. The £22 billion so-called black hole is a mere accounting device. The Labour Government are trying to make the political point that the Conservative party ran the country into the ground, so we have to punish the pensioners. It is absolute and complete rubbish.

What those we represent cannot understand—the people who worked hard all of their life, who have done their bit for the country and whose total package is perhaps £13,000 or £14,000 a year—is that this so-called saving of public money is actually going to go to the train drivers, who earn £70,000 a year. So for God’s sake, let us have a serious debate, let us try to unite on this issue and let us not keep taking away benefits from people just above the pension credit limit. Of course, there are many pensioners who are entitled to pension credit who, for all sorts of reasons, will never claim it. They are suffering, so they will be even worse off.

There is another point to be made. The Government will argue that the total package will be worth more after the increase in the triple lock next year, but actually a pensioner who drew their pension before 2016, by the time they have had this cut, will probably be even worse off. The first cut in the state pension for years! This is not acceptable. This is not the right way to go about things. We should unite around a sensible package that rewards pensioners for their hard work, but does not just indulge in a political gesture.