Winter Fuel Payment

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I will look at that and discuss it with my noble friend Lady Sherlock.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I perhaps take a slightly different view on this. Of course, I welcome people being able to get their winter fuel payments. We are still applying the pension credit, which is absolutely right. I do not know what everybody else in this House who got winter fuel payments did with them, but I donated mine to charity; I certainly did not need that £300, and there are plenty of others like me.

If I have a concern about government policy, it is this. Nobody seems to recognise that pensioners benefited very well from the triple lock. I do not agree with the triple lock. I may be in a minority, but that money could be used, as people have said, for alleviating child poverty—probably one of the biggest challenges that we face. I am not expecting the Minister to do an about-turn on that one; I am just making a comment. When we go for the triple lock, there is an expensive cost. Tomorrow, we will hear the Chancellor make known how she will balance that budget. I welcome that people on pension credit—who we wanted to claim pension credit—will be able to get their winter fuel payments. In that respect, this is good. I have only expressed my one area of concern.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for what he says. Over 12 million pensioners are now benefiting across the UK from the triple lock. Their state pension is set to increase by up to £1,900 over the course of this Parliament. Almost 60,000 extra households are now receiving the pension credit that they are entitled to, which I think we can all agree is a very good thing. He said that he donated his winter fuel payments to charity; he is welcome to continue to do that if his income is below £35,000. If it is under that and he wants to opt out of receiving it, he is very welcome to do so. We will bring forward proposals before the Summer Recess enabling him to do that.