Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024

Debate between Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Lord Morrow

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I have a few brief comments in relation to what is before the House. As far as my party is concerned, we will not have any trouble supporting either the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, or the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, because we are infuriated by this matter.

The decision to discontinue paying the £300 winter fuel payment to pensioners is a shock and a surprise, as it comes after just 68 days in office by the Labour Administration, who often declare their support and concern for the most vulnerable in our society. I suspect that this is an opportunity at the start of their tenure to get the bad news out of the way quickly so that, when they come back for another mandate, most people will have forgotten who “done them in” and when it happened. However, I suspect that people will not forget. I implore the Government to think carefully, even at this late stage.

We have all heard much about the £22 billion black hole in our finances. If this is the case, one is left wondering why the most vulnerable should be targeted in an attempt to balance the books. Surely there are other ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has just mentioned. Why pick on the most vulnerable, on those who cannot answer back? It is very difficult to take this.

Pensioners who already find it very difficult will find it even more difficult to survive following this measure by a Labour socialist Government. I was speaking to some folk today who said to me, “I voted for the Government, a new Labour Administration, for change, but I didn’t realise that this was the change they had in mind”. They are now learning that they may have made a mistake and misplaced their vote on this occasion. They were quite moderate in their condemnation of the Government, but they said, “I did not expect to get this slap in the face, and I certainly did not expect it within two months or so of Labour taking over”.

The Government say, “We didn’t know that we were going to be confronted with a £22 billion black hole”. I suspect that we will hear some of that when the Minister responds. I used to sit in a degree of awe when the Minister was on the other side of the House, and every time she finished, I used to say, “Well, there is one Peer at least with a social conscience”. I am not saying that she has now lost her social conscience, but she has a wonderful opportunity now to demonstrate it. I look forward to hearing what she has to say.

Now that this Administration are in office, it seems that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. In my part of the world, they will say, “Well, when was it ever any different?” I said to them that Labour is now in and has promised that there will be change. The footnote to everything that they said was that they wanted change. Well, this is a change in the wrong direction. I am sure that the Minister will give us the reason why they had to change and hit, below the belt, the weakest and the poorest in society. I look forward to hearing it.

Was there a single word in the manifesto that this is how it would be? Labour has been returned with a very convincing majority—overwhelming, some of us would say. However, I suspect that, had they hinted that they were going to target pensioners, that majority would not have been so overwhelming; it would have been much less, if it existed at all.

I suspect that many Labour Peers here today are uncomfortable with this and they will find it difficult to walk through the Lobbies here this evening and say, “This is exactly what I came into this House to do: to punish, punish, punish the weakest in society”. I implore Labour now to step back and think again. How many more punitive measures will this Government foist upon us and particularly on the vulnerable? Balancing the books is important, but balancing the books on the weakest in society is not the way to go. I say to the Government, “Please rethink your goal”.

When Labour was in opposition, it boldly declared—and these are the figures not from the bad Tories, my colleagues or the Lib Dems—that to scrap the £300 fuel payment would cost as many as 4,000 lives, as OAPs would be unable adequately to heat their homes. Are they still saying that? Is that still their position? If not, why has it changed so quickly? Just when they get their hands on the levers of power, they decide, “We’ve a very convincing majority: we can think, do and say what we like and show everybody who’s in control”. Yes, they can, but please can they reconsider what they are doing here? They have not endeared themselves to very many.

That £1.5 billion is a small amount in the scheme of things. My noble friend Lord McCrea has already alluded to the fact that there will be no savings at the end of the day. What about those who get cold, are taken to hospital and must be cared for? Where will the savings come from? I am sure that the Minister will outline in some detail where she sees them coming from.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long, but I want to just say one thing. I may be the only person who speaks up for the Government Front Bench, for which I do not expect them to thank me.

It is appalling to suggest that Members of this House are somehow personally lacking in social conscience when it is other people’s money, rather than their own, that we are talking about. Again and again, we see this conflation between the public need for economy and people’s personal morality, as though it was their own meanness or generosity. We had the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, talking about them as Scrooge. Scrooge was dealing with his own assets, not somebody else’s. The noble Lord, Lord Morrow, who knows how much I admire him, just said that the Minister has a chance to re-establish her social conscience. It is not her social conscience.

We can disagree with this policy. I would have done many things differently from this Government, as they know. One thing, which will make me even more unpopular, is that I would not be putting up the cost of energy as we do in this self-congratulatory way in vote after vote and then complain about the consequences, as we have been doing today. But can we please conduct our debates on the basis that, if you happen to favour the idea of benefits as a last resort for the needy rather than a universal entitlement, that does not make you a bad person? People on both sides of this issue are motivated by humanity and decency and, ultimately, by a concern for the welfare of the nation as a whole.