Winter Fuel Payment
Jonathan Davies Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)
This afternoon, we have heard some fantastic speeches in which Members have set out heartbreaking real-life stories from their constituents about the situation older people have found themselves in this winter. Pensioners have been forced to choose between eating and heating as a result of the Government’s choice to remove the winter fuel allowance from around 10 million of them. That was compounded by shocking delays in processing pension credit claims. Along with those who have just missed the threshold to receive support, it has meant that many, many people who are desperately in need have missed out on hundreds of pounds that would have made a real difference to them this winter.
As has previously been said:
“Although the poorest do receive some help through cold weather payments, they go only to those on income support, who generally have to wait until after the cold weather for help to be available. The payments are no help at all to most pensioners, including…those on the margins of poverty”.
The individual continues that they were
“simply not prepared to allow another winter to go by when pensioners are fearful of turning up their heating, even on the coldest winter days, because they do not know whether they will have the help they need for their fuel bills.”—[Official Report, 25 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 779-80.]
Those were the words of the former Labour Chancellor and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who brought in the winter fuel payment. It is a great shame that his successors in a Labour Government today have taken a very different view on support for pensioners.
The choice made by the Labour Government—almost their first choice in office last July—is as cruel as it is unnecessary, and it has real-life consequences for vulnerable people. Like many other Members, I suspect on both sides of the House, I have met my local branch of Age UK and other local charities. They all tell me about how hard their services—services vitally important to pensioners, such as GPs, hospices and pharmacies—will be hit by the Government’s jobs tax, the NICs hike. Alongside that impact on services pensioners rely on, this Government have slashed the winter fuel payment for so many. Understandably, pensioners are asking what the Labour party has against them—or, for that matter, against farmers or businesses.
Edward Argar
Let me just complete the point. I know that the hon. Gentleman has only come into the debate relatively late, but I will take an intervention from him afterwards.
The message is, under this Government, do not run a hospice, a pharmacy or a care home. Do not be a farmer. Do not run a business and, heaven forbid, do not get old.
Jonathan Davies
We on the Government Benches are disappointed to have had to make this decision, but it is a symptom of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I just remind the shadow Minister of something. I understand that he stood in the 2017 general election. Some of the policies in the Conservative manifesto at that time were to means-test the winter fuel allowance and to reduce the triple lock to a double lock.
Edward Argar
I will make a number of points to the hon. Gentleman. I was going to come on to his first point, but I will happily do so now. He seems to be alluding to the mythical so-called black hole that is so often bandied around. The OBR pointedly declined to validate that or back it up in its assessment, and it cannot be deemed a rationale for doing this.
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Jonathan Davies Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I recently met with an organisation called Deaf-initely Women, which supports deaf and hard of hearing women in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It became apparent to me that the voices of those women are not being heard in the way that services are designed. I wondered whether my hon. Friend might reflect on that as part of her speech.
Debbie Abrahams
Again, that is a very important point. We have seen the decimation of services—social services, but also those in the charity sector—so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point.
The investigating committee found that the Government had implemented a policy aimed at reforming their welfare system, and that those reforms had been justified in the context of austerity measures to achieve consolidation of fiscal and budgetary policy. However, the impact assessments conducted by the Government prior to the implementation of several of their welfare reform measures expressly foresaw an adverse impact on disabled people, but those assessments were ignored. Evidence gathered nationally by many disabled people’s organisations, charities, academics and many more showed the adverse and disproportionate effects of those welfare reform measures on persons with disabilities.
The impacts on the health of disabled people were also documented in a 2021 report assessing the health effects of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. This should have been a wake-up call for the Government of the day, but unfortunately, even after the tragic deaths of dozens if not hundreds of disabled social security claimants over the past five years, the UN committee published a follow-up report in March this year in which it said that
“no significant progress has been made in the state party concerning the situation of persons with disabilities addressed in the inquiry proceedings”.
That report stated that while some measures had been taken to address the committee’s recommendations, there were also
“signs of regression in the standards and principles of the convention”.
As my right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware, the committee has asked for a report by March 2029 to update it on the implementation of those recommendations. I know that he takes this issue very seriously, but despite the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 30 years ago, we have seen other areas of discrimination against disabled people. The Office for National Statistics conducted qualitative research that examined the experiences that people with disabilities had with activities, goods and services in the UK. It found barriers including physical access, restrictive building layouts, inaccessible online services, poor information provision and inflexible design of customer services that do not consider accessibility for a broad range of needs.
Our train network does not have level access, about which we heard Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson make a plea in the summer, when what she was put through was outrageous. When I had a presentation on the trans-Pennine route upgrade, I was absolutely shocked to find that the rolling stock, which is yet to be commissioned, is not going to provide level access. It is absolute nonsense that that is not even in the design for that procurement, so we must do better. Given that the new rolling stock will not be out until 2029, I am hoping there will be time for people to think again, because that is just not good enough.
The difference in education outcomes is also shocking. According to the ONS, only a quarter of disabled people aged 21 to 64 have a degree or equivalent as their highest qualification compared with nearly 43% of non-disabled people. In addition, disabled people are almost three times more likely to have no qualifications than non-disabled people. Disabled people are also less likely to have GCSE grades of C and higher in comparison with non-disabled people. We know that disabled people do not have the same experience of UK schools as their non-disabled counterparts, and that barriers exist for these children across the educational system. I remember doing some work on this in my own constituency, and it was quite shocking to see the difficulties that disabled children face.
The cost of living crisis has hit disabled people harder than the wider population. Many disabled people have vital equipment that is expensive to run. The extra costs are estimated at over £975 a month on average. Imagine if that additional cost was one that everybody had to face, because we would really feel the pinch. A survey carried out by Sense found that 85% of people with complex disabilities are worried about this rising cost of living. If we look at employment, we need to remember that the disability employment gap sits at nearly 30%, as it has for many years. According to the ONS, there are 2.2 million disabled people who want to work but need support to get into work. Disabled jobseekers can face barriers on seeking employment, including from employers who believe that it is too difficult, risky or expensive to hire someone with disabilities. All organisations need to understand the challenges faced by disabled jobseekers.