Social Security Advisory Committee: Winter Fuel Payment

Debate between Helen Whately and Emma Reynolds

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when she plans to respond to the Social Security Advisory Committee’s letter, published on 17 October 2024, on the means-testing of winter fuel payments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Emma Reynolds)]

We welcome the letter from the chair of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We were hoping to respond to the letter on the day of the Budget. Regrettably, there has been an unexpected further delay, and we are due to issue the response this week. However, my officials met the committee in August to discuss the regulations, prior to the committee’s formal scrutiny in early September.

I want to explain briefly why it is important to invoke the urgency procedure in this case. We needed to make the necessary Exchequer savings in the current financial year, as the regulations needed to come into force on 16 September. The previous Government left us with a £22 billion black hole, with Treasury reserves spent three times over. The day-to-day departmental spending set out by the previous Government in their spring Budget was not even close to reality. It is now up to us to clear up the mess of the previous Government, so we had to take some difficult decisions, such as means-testing the winter fuel payment, but we remain determined to do everything possible to support the poorest pensioners.

We have taken immediate action to increase the take-up of pension credit, working with charities and local authorities and through a campaign in print and broadcast media. The Government have written to more than 12 million pensioners about the changes to means-testing the winter fuel payment. We have also written to 120,000 pensioners on housing benefit, who could be entitled to pension credit, to encourage them to claim. We have extended the household support fund until March 2026. Thanks to our steadfast commitment to the triple lock, more than 12 million pensioners will see their state pension rise by up to £470 next year, and up to £1,900 over the course of this Parliament. The warm home discount, which we heard about a minute ago, is worth £150 off energy bills for low-income households. The warm homes plan will in the longer term insulate 5 million more homes.

By taking these difficult decisions, we were able to provide a cash injection of £22.6 billion to the NHS budget, which is the largest real-terms growth in day-to-day NHS spending—outside of covid—since 2010. That will bring down waiting times for people across the country, including many pensioners. We are taking the responsible and difficult decisions to clear up the mess of the previous Government, to fix the foundations of our economy and rebuild our public services.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

This Government made a choice to take away the winter fuel payment from 10 million pensioners this winter and to rely on the notoriously under-claimed pension credit as a system of means-testing it. That choice will make life harder for pensioners across the country. It will see 750,000 of the poorest pensioners miss out on much-needed help with the cost of heating, and according to the Labour party’s own research, it could lead to 4,000 additional deaths this winter. The Government know that. That is why they have not done an impact assessment. Perhaps it is why, after seven weeks, they still have not responded to the concerns of their own advisory committee.

The committee wrote the Secretary of State a letter containing its concerns about how the policy will affect the poorest people. It said that 70% of disabled pensioners will miss out on their payment this winter, and it suggested expanding the eligibility for winter fuel payments beyond pension credit because the committee knows that the Government’s savings are based on a third of the poorest pensioners missing out. In direct contrast to the Government, the committee said that

“a more detailed assessment is urgently required”,

as colleagues from all parts of the House—including Labour Members—charities and pensioner groups across the country have also said.

Here we are, seven weeks later, and the Secretary of State is yet to even respond to the advisory committee. In fact, she is not even here to answer this urgent question. I ask the Minister: will the Government now, after seven weeks, respond to their own advisory committee? Will they now, after seven weeks, publish a full impact assessment for everyone to see? Does she accept that her Government have got this wrong? Does she recognise that they have negligently underestimated how many people will fall through the cracks? I suspect that deep down she is worried, as I am, about pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. I am sure her Secretary of State has been lobbying the Chancellor behind the scenes—perhaps that is where she is right now, instead of being here. Will the hon. Lady go back to her Chancellor one more time and try to make her think again?

[Emma Reynolds]

I do apologise for the delay in responding to the committee’s letter; it is regrettable. The initial delay, as I set out, was because we were waiting for the OBR to come forward with its costings of the policy. Then there was another, unexpected delay. There has been a delay—[Interruption.] I do not know why I am being heckled; I am trying calmly to explain why there has been a delay, for which I do apologise. We will issue a response very shortly, and certainly by the end of the week. It is important that we respond to that letter. I respect that the hon. Lady is asking that question.

Regarding the public sector equality duty, we have done everything in line with the duty, which is to provide an equality analysis of the decision that we have taken. As hon. Members will know, that analysis was published in September. However—I say this gently—after the election we found ourselves in a situation of having a £22 billion black hole, with Treasury reserves spent three times over. The OBR has said that its assessment of the previous Government’s Budget would have been materially different had it known the pressures on spending and the real situation in the Treasury. I note that the hon. Lady does not come with an apology.

We have had to take the decision to means-test winter fuel payments. We did not want to do that, but we have had to take some difficult decisions to clear up the mess, to tackle our fiscal inheritance and to start rebuilding our public services, which pensioners across the country and many others rely on.