Winter Fuel Payment
Debate between Luke Evans and Josh Simons(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Josh Simons
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me a few more minutes, I will come to the exact question of the threshold at which pension credit is awarded and at which, therefore, someone is eligible for the winter fuel payment.
In order to reach the most vulnerable people, who are often the hardest to reach because they are not on Facebook and are not coming to my coffee mornings, I wrote to more than 5,000 pensioners to ensure that they received the support they deserved.
Let me end by making a broader point. Today’s debate has underscored a simple truth about Conservative Members. Theirs is no longer the party with the strength and courage to lead, whether in asserting the sovereignty of this place or in making arguments with principle.
Josh Simons
I will not.
The Conservatives knew that the winter fuel payment needed to change—they said so in their manifesto in 2017—but they did nothing about it. They knew that NHS England was duplicating, wasting taxpayers’ money and failing to drive up standards, but they did nothing about it. They knew that flooding was getting worse in places such as Platt Bridge, Ashton and Abram in my constituency, but they did nothing about it.
Let me give an even more egregious example from this week. The shadow Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), has stomped his feet and shaken his head about new guidance issued by the Sentencing Council. The Lord Chancellor has been clear that independent agencies should not make policy; this Chamber should. However, what the shadow Secretary of State for Justice is unwilling to confront is the fact that his party welcomed that guidance. The unequal treatment in the guidance has not changed, and he knows that. The shadow Secretary of State for Justice typifies what the Conservative party has become, and that has been exemplified in this debate. Conservative Members come to this Chamber shaking with outrage and spoiling for a spat, but they forget that they have been in charge.