Support for Pensioners

John Lamont Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Blake Stephenson]

I am absolutely shocked, and I will come on to mention a few stories from my own constituents. They are very similar, and I think we are hearing these stories up and down the country.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is speaking very well about the challenges that older people are facing. I note that there are no Labour Back Benchers here to contribute to the debate. We have the Minister and his Parliamentary Private Secretary, so the payroll are here, but despite all the rhetoric during the general election campaign about supporting pensioners, Labour Back Benchers do not seem to be willing to stand up for them in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Blake Stephenson]

My hon. Friend says no, but I was making a rhetorical statement.

Perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps the Government care deeply about supporting pensioners and have been working tirelessly to help them. Well, there is another problem there, because a Government working tirelessly to support the most vulnerable pensioners would know exactly how many needed support and how many were missing. They would have a tracker counting down towards zero, and a working culture in the Department for Work and Pensions that meant it did not rest until everyone who needed support received it. Do they have that culture? No, they do not. The Government have already admitted that they have set no targets for pension credit sign-ups, and last month they could not even give me an estimate of how many pensioners below the pension credit threshold will not receive their winter fuel payment this winter. These are the most vulnerable people in our society. It is utterly shameful.

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. He is rightly highlighting the weaknesses of the Labour Government in supporting pensioners. Does he agree that in many communities, the voluntary and third sector is now stepping forward to provide that support? In my area we have the Borders Older People’s Forum, the warm-ups in St Boswells village hall, the Hawick dementia café and multiple other examples of the voluntary and third sector stepping forward to provide the support that the Government should be providing.

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for making such an important point. Yes, the third sector has come forward to support, but what have the Government done to the third sector? They have applied national insurance increases and reduced the threshold, causing pain and suffering for the sector that our constituents now rely on because the Government have stepped away from their responsibilities.

The support that the Government have given pensioners to cover off the impacts of their decision to cut winter fuel payments is merely the thinnest of political spin. The most prominent such cover is the extension of the household support fund, which itself is an attempt to outsource the protection of vulnerable residents to already under-pressure local authorities that should be focused on delivering high-quality public services.

But it is worse than just outsourcing the problem, because a bit of examination showed that up to be the most disappointing example of the empty words our constituents hate. Despite the spin, the truth is that the household support fund simply has not been designed with pensioners in mind. The east of England receives £32.90 per pensioner. London receives double that: £66.73. When I first saw those numbers and the Government’s description of the household support fund as mitigation for pensioners, I wondered why London’s pensioners had been deemed so much more deserving of support, so I wrote to the Secretary of State. I got the simple answer that the fund is not intended to be targeted at pensioners. The Government have even admitted to me that they do not know how much of the household support fund went to pensioners this winter. Age UK estimates that typically, £1 in every £10 the household support fund pays out goes to pensioners.

What does all that mean for our pensioners? It means more pensioners in hospital—nearly 20,000 more in November and December 2024 than in the same months in 2023, a 6.6% increase. That is 6.6% more stress on our already overstretched health services, and it is nearly 20,000 more pensioners suffering in hospital and potentially suffering lasting ill health, because this Government, which some of them voted for in the belief that they would look after them, forced them to make a choice between heating and eating. It means tens of thousands more pensioners in poverty. Those are the Government’s own statistics.