Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Minister told us that by maintaining the cold weather payment of the previous year this Government had given an additional £10 million to pensioners in Northern Ireland. Will he tell us how much money he is denying to pensioners in Northern Ireland by refusing to maintain the level of the winter fuel allowance? Has he done the same calculation?

[Steve Webb]

What we have done is preserve the amount that was scheduled to be spent in Northern Ireland exactly as planned. Clearly, £50 a head in Northern Ireland is probably slightly more than the figure for the cold weather payment. I did some mental arithmetic while the right hon. Member for Belfast North was speaking and I suspect that that figure is slightly larger. The key choice was between doing nothing—taking our baseline and taking £70 billion or £80 billion out—and trying to reverse at least one of the cuts. I think that the right thing to do was address the cold weather payment.

Let me give a slightly cheeky example of why that was our priority. I checked the dates of birth of the hon. Members from Northern Ireland and found that at least one of them would, in principle, qualify for a winter fuel payment—I am not going to name names. [Hon. Members: “Go on.”] I am not even going to look in the direction of the person I am talking about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson). I commend him and his colleagues on bringing the motion to the House. In particular, I commend the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on the cogent and assertive way in which he moved the motion and anticipated many of the Government’s arguments.

The motion is timely and focused. Contrary to much of the debate, which has ranged far and wide along the full dimensions of fuel poverty, the structural condition of the housing stock, fuel prices and all those vagaries, the motion is focused on something under the control of the House and the Government: the decision on the winter fuel payments. We are clear that all those issues need to be addressed, and the measures taken by the previous and present Governments are to be encouraged, as too are other more far-reaching measures, but given the rampant rise in energy costs for older people and all the other pressures on their incomes, we cannot countenance complacency about the cut to winter fuel payments.

The decision on winter fuel payments represents a clear and present cut imposed by this Government. The Minister tried to argue first that it was not a cut, then that it was a Labour planned cut, but the fact is this: it is a clear and present cut for pensioner households already facing other pressures and difficulties. It is a sleight of hand for people to suggest, “Well, the Government were committed to doing what the previous Government did”, because really they said, “No, we’re only committed to doing what we think the previous Government planned, not what they did.”

The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said that we have to talk to and listen to our pensioners. I have, and every single one has told me that the cut is an issue for them, and every single one is clear that for three years they received payments at a certain level, but that this year they will not get them at that level. That is a cut, and it is a cut from this Government.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is at a time when they need it most?

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, of course it is at a time when they need it most, and it is not only the time of year when they need it most but the time in the economic cycle—with all the difficulties that people are facing.

We have heard some duplicitous arguments from Government Members. On the one hand many people talk about the difficulties with means-tested benefits and with supporting pensioners through pension credits, but on the other hand we have heard criticisms of the fuel payment and the fact that it is not means-tested or discriminatory. We have heard contradictory arguments.

Indeed, the Minister earlier argued against the whole scheme, structure and logic of winter fuel payments. He actually argued against the allowance altogether and said that better, more discriminating interventions were available to protect people against fuel poverty and to support more deserving pensioners. In the light of his logic, I wonder whether the Government plan fundamentally to review or redesign the fuel payment.

The previous Government introduced the single annual payment in 1998, but the first time I heard it advocated was in 1988, when my predecessor, John Hume, commended to the then social security Minister, John Major, the introduction of an annual thermal allowance to overcome many of the difficulties with the cold weather payments, their inadequacy and the poor and inconsistent triggering system. Thankfully, we got something similar with the winter fuel payment in 1998.

Over the years, the amount of money committed to the payment has changed and top-ups have been introduced. Pensioners have come to see those top-ups as a given, and considering what the Prime Minister said going into the election, they had every right to expect them to remain a given. The motion tabled by my compatriots in the Democratic Unionist party gives the House the opportunity to signal to the Government that that is what we want and what pensioners expect.

Many valid arguments have been made about how to tackle fuel poverty—improving energy efficiency, for example. Although some of those measures can be introduced in Northern Ireland at the devolved level, others need wider intervention from here. Those could include more up-front investment in energy efficiency retrofit schemes or VAT concessions, not least to stimulate work in the hard-pressed construction sector, which is not building new houses. There is an awful lot of work that people with construction skills could do to retrofit and improve existing houses, and there are many things that young people who want to get construction skills could do on such schemes. The Government need to think more widely about other measures to tackle fuel poverty, but they should not use the existence of other interventions as an excuse to justify this unjustified cut.

I shall not rehearse the statistics on the levels of fuel poverty in Northern Ireland that my colleagues have mentioned because other Members want to speak, and nor shall I rehearse the number of winter deaths from fuel poverty either in the UK at large or in Northern Ireland. I shall only make the point that those deaths are avoidable and that we need to take what steps we can to avoid them. This cut is avoidable.

The Minister asked, “Where else can the money come from?” I do not necessarily agree with some of the suggestions from right hon. and hon. colleagues, although I am glad that the Government moved on from some of the vanity projects—for example, the NHS IT scheme. Money could also be saved on Trident.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned mortality. As he knows, I have family in Armagh, where the climate can be pretty tough, but it can be even colder and more difficult in Scandinavia, where the figures for hypothermia are much lower than ours. Is that not a point that we should bear in mind?

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, it is. That raises questions about investment in quality housing stock and the levels of social support, guarantees and interventions available in Scandinavian countries, and it is why we need to follow the precise focus of the motion, which relates specifically to the winter fuel payment.

I attended the Northern Ireland Pensioners’ Parliament to which hon. Members have referred. It took place in the summer—in June—yet the single strongest issue coming through concerned the winter fuel payment. Yes, people were aware of the changes and the pensions triple lock, but they did not buy it and obviously resented the sleight of hand, with the change in indexation and so on. What they focused on was the direct cut facing them. That is why so many people have campaigned on it, and not just in Northern Ireland.

As the Government look to what they can do to help shelter people from the effects of recession and face the rampant pressures on household costs, I hope that they will reinstate the top-up in winter fuel payments to support pensioners. When pensioners hear the question, “Where will the money come from?”, they say, as some pensioners said at the Pensioners’ Parliament, “When this quantitative easing happens”—supposedly so that money gets out there into the economy—“why is the money given to the banks?” When that money goes into the banks, does it get out there into the economy? Those pensioners make the sensible point—this is one thing we do know—that when we give money to pensioners, it will be spent. It will not stay in those households; it will be spent, in local shops and so on, and go usefully and legitimately into the economy. If there is another phase of quantitative easing and more money is made available to go into the economy, perhaps it should go via pensioners. Then we would all share in the benefits and, in particular, pensioners would be sheltered from the cold.