Winter Fuel Payment

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I certainly remember, and I am sure others will, the Government saying that those with the broadest shoulders would take the strain. Does the shadow Secretary of State consider those on this level of income to have the broadest shoulders?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the important point I am making, which is that if the Government thought what they were doing would affect just the very wealthiest in society, they were very wrong.

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[Louise Jones]

What is fair is a 4.1% rise in the state pension and a 5.5% to 6% rise for our soldiers, teachers and nurses, and I will say that as many times as I need to say it.

Many people in this country have been grappling with skyrocketing energy bills, which have caused real poverty. Those bills have skyrocketed largely because we are at the mercy of international markets, so it is vital that we take back sovereign control of our energy and energy prices, and GB Energy is a vital part of that.

[Harriet Cross]

The interim chief executive officer of GB Energy has said that reducing energy bills

“is not in the remit of GB Energy”,

so how is GB Energy going to help with energy bills?

[Louise Jones]

GB Energy will turbocharge renewables across the country. Once we have that, we will have more control over our energy systems and, as the hon. Lady knows, we will have control over what happens with bills.

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[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), a Member for whom I have a lot of fondness, but with whom I am afraid I am going to part ways quite considerably this afternoon.

The point has been made by Opposition Members about the difficulties of government, so I will repeat a point I have made in previous Opposition day debates. Members on the Opposition Benches, for the time being, have considerably more experience of government than Members on the Government Benches. I believe that regrettably, many of the actions my own party took during our time in opposition prolonged that, but as a result, I and many Members on these Benches gained a huge amount of experience of what real opposition looks like, as well as what flawed opposition looks like. I gently remind Opposition Members—not for the first time in this place—that if this is what they consider opposition to look like, they are going to spend a lot more time on those Benches than they might wish.

It is often said that any day in government is better than any day in opposition. I am sure Members on the Opposition Benches are very much enjoying the opportunity to repeat arguments we have heard numerous times already. But every single day in government is also a time when we must make decisions, and we on this side of the House—in this Government—have been very clear about the decision we have taken. We have not shirked from it. We have not hidden it. Our decision on the winter fuel allowance was announced in this place. It was not an easy decision—far from it.

[Harriet Cross]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Ferguson]

I am very, very close to making a point, but why not? There are more people wishing to speak on the Opposition Benches than on the Government Benches, so as someone who has many teachers in the family—we have mentioned teachers in this debate already —I will give way and say, “It’s not my time you’re wasting.”

[Harriet Cross]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I actually do not think it is anyone’s time we are wasting, seeing as we are discussing such an important topic. He talked about a decision that was made. I was just wondering, if Government Members had their time again, would they make the same decision?

[Mark Ferguson]

I would, and here’s why: when there are difficult decisions to be taken, we cannot shirk from them. When the Government shirk from those decisions, they end up with the grotesque chaos of entering a general election having accrued £22 billion of expenditure that there has not been sufficient allocation for, which is why someone else has to pick up the pieces.

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[Matthew Patrick]

The hon. Lady will know that, when it comes to the NHS, the longest waiting times were impacted by the pandemic, but the longest waiting times on record prior to the pandemic were seen the day before it, because of Conservative mismanagement. The Conservatives do not have a record that they should feel proud of on that matter, or on the economy.

[Harriet Cross]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Matthew Patrick]

I am finishing on the intervention that I just took; I might then come to another.

Many constituents in Wirral West really suffered through Tory mismanagement on the economy and on public services. That mismanagement saw a status quo fail our pensioners and fail all of us. Getting the country back on track required us to support those who need it most. No one in my constituency thinks that the very richest in society like Sir Richard Branson need Government support to get by.

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[Andrew Western]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am sure she is capable of contacting my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield herself, but I recall that he did mention that he was working closely with his local authority. I am sure it has been able to assist in that campaign, which he described as a partnership rather than his own work, to drive take-up in his area.

As detailed earlier by the Pensions Minister, we are directly targeting all pensioners who make a new claim for housing benefit, bringing together the administration of pension credit and housing benefit, and we are introducing new research on the triggers and motivations that encourage people to apply for pension credit, to guide future policymaking.

I echo the Pensions Minister’s remarks on the triple lock. It is worth repeating that over 12 million pensioners will benefit from our commitment here. Over this Parliament, up to and including 2029-30, the OBR forecasts that Government spending on the state pension will rise by over £31 billion. And there is lots of other support too, including the warm home discount and the household support fund, available to pensioners.

I will turn now to some of the other specific points raised during today’s debate. Several Members raised the delays in pension credit processing. It is important for me to recognise here the sheer volume of applications the Department received during this period. We understand that pensioners expect their applications to be processed quickly and accurately, which is why we deployed over 500 extra staff to process the huge increase. The latest statistics also show a positive picture: outstanding claims have reduced from 85,500 in mid-December to just 33,700 by 23 February, which is in line with the Department’s usual number of claims awaiting processing.

Some hon. Members raised the issue of an impact assessment at the time of the policy decision. In line with the requirements of the public sector equality duty, an equality analysis was produced as part of the ministerial decision-making process. That was published on 13 September and placed in the House of Commons Library. It assessed the effects on individuals and households according to protected characteristics set out under the Equality Act 2010. They do not include impacts on the NHS.

Other hon. Members have quoted figures on the poverty impact of the changes to winter fuel payments. I simply note that yes, internal Government modelling was produced as part of routine policy advice. Given the interest from the Work and Pensions Committee and the public interest, the Department published this modelling for transparency in a letter to the Select Committee in November. However, it is essential to note that this modelling is subject to a range of uncertainties, which should be taken into account when interpreting the results, and that it does not take into account any impact of the measures we are taking to increase pension credit take-up and ensure pensioners get the benefits to which they are entitled.

[Harriet Cross]

My understanding is that the impact assessment showed that about 100,000 pensioners would be put into poverty. I was just wondering what range either side of that figure would be acceptable to the Minister.

[Andrew Western]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that I would never want to see those numbers increase, but that number is significantly better than the 300,000 pensioners who went into relative poverty under her Government.

To those asking about Government action with respect to energy costs, I say that the Government recognise that affording energy bills is a struggle for many and that energy debt is rising. The Government have continuous engagement with energy suppliers and have discussed the support they have in place to support vulnerable consumers, including pensioner households. We are continuing to deliver the warm home discount for eligible low-income households and have recently published a consultation on its expansion, which would bring around 2.7 million more households into the scheme, pushing the total number of households receiving the discount next winter up to around 6 million.

I will turn briefly to some of the contributions from Members on the Conservative Benches, and in particular from the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who, interestingly—given the description used by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) of this side of the House—I felt expressed faux outrage at this decision. It is rich from a party that, as I said, pushed 300,000 pensioners into relative poverty, made pitiful efforts to address pension credit take-up, made a 2017 manifesto commitment to means-test the winter fuel payment and let the value of the winter fuel payment fall by around 50% during its time in government.

The shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions went on to make repeated reference to Labour Members’ consciences, which was relatively offensive, but nothing compared with being called the “nasty party” by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire. I will not accept those sorts of attacks from the Conservatives—the party of Downing Street parties, the party of the inhumane Rwanda scheme, and the party that drove so many to food banks. My conscience is clear, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is appalling to imagine that theirs is the same after what they did to this country over 14 years.

I listened very carefully to—[Interruption.] I am being chuntered at from a sedentary position about the household support fund. I remind the shadow Secretary of State that it was not fully funded by the Conservatives on a multi-year basis, and it is this Government who have provided that certainty to local authorities.

I listened very carefully to the speech from the shadow Health Secretary and, indeed, the more than dozen speeches from Opposition Members, and I am still no clearer on what their policy actually is. We had one Member standing up and saying means-test, another standing up and saying tax the winter fuel payment, but neither shadow Secretary of State present bothered to stand up and tell us what the Conservatives’ policy is. If they want to stand up now and say that they would reverse this policy decision, I would be happy to give way to either of them. Feel free. Their silence says it all, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We have made the hard choices necessary to bring the public finances back under control after 14 years of Tory misrule.