Winter Fuel Payment

Mel Stride Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

3.16 pm

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House regrets that the Government approved the use of the urgency exemption in section 173 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to make and lay the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 before the Secretary of State had referred the Regulations to the Social Security Advisory Committee; further regrets that the Government decided it was not necessary to publish an impact assessment for the Regulations, despite, for example, the evidence which shows that living in a cold home increases the risk of serious illness for vulnerable people and those with disabilities and so restricting eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment is likely to lead to increased burdens on the National Health Service; regrets that the Government made time to debate the prayer motion from the Official Opposition without the Social Security Advisory Committee’s Report, and Government response; and calls on the Government to lay those papers before Parliament without delay, and to publish a full regulatory and equality impact assessment for these Regulations.

The decision to remove winter fuel payments has come as a complete shock to millions of pensioners—pensioners on as little as £11,500 a year. We have had no adequate explanation as to why this measure is so urgent. We have had no explanation as to why the Government had to invoke the special emergency provisions that allow them to bypass the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We have had no explanation as to why no impact assessments were provided. This is a major policy change that will remove the entitlement for up to 10 million pensioners, including many who are already in poverty. It is a cut worth £7.5 billion over the course of this Parliament. Rushing such a policy through—without taking time to consider the impacts, ensure effective and fair implementation, and allow possible scrutiny—is impossible to justify. This is not the way to make good policy, and this is not good government.

It is worth considering the conclusions of one of the few bodies that have been afforded the opportunity to scrutinise these regulations. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords has been damning in its criticism of the Government’s approach, and I refer the House to my remarks in the previous debate, when I quoted the Committee at some length. As the Committee points out, such measures would normally be subject to the SSAC’s consideration. That is an important part of the process for any legislation of this nature, as I know well from my time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Conveniently, Ministers have claimed that the measure is too urgent to wait for the SSAC’s scrutiny.

We understand that the SSAC is due to consider the measure tomorrow. Can the Minister commit to the House today that the SSAC’s report, and the Government statement responding to any recommendations, will be laid before Parliament before the regulations come into force next week? As the Lords Committee has pointed out, it would seem wholly inappropriate for the SSAC’s views to be taken into account only once the regulations are already in force. In the words of the Committee,

“It remains unclear what the practical impact of any statement might be on regulations which will have already come into effect.”

If the Government do not intend to provide us with the SSAC’s observations before the House rises on Thursday, why were Members asked to consider and vote on the prayer motion against the regulations today, before the SSAC has met?

The lack of any impact assessment means that we are severely hampered in our ability to scrutinise this measure. We were told in the explanatory memorandum that:

“A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because there is no significant new impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies.”

This seems a bold claim to make about a measure that removes hundreds of pounds of support from some of the most vulnerable elderly households in our country.

The guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is clear:

“For a vulnerable person, living in a cold home increases their chance of serious illness or death.”

It also notes that

“being housebound increases both the exposure to an underheated home and the cost of heating it.”

So can I ask the Minister on what basis it was concluded that there would be no significant impact from this policy on those charities and organisations that support elderly people or on the wider health and social care system? Will he now commit to the publication of a proper impact assessment?

The only basis for the urgency seems to be a claim that this measure is vital for public finances. We have even been subjected to the Leader of the House claiming that it was needed to avoid a run on the pound. I might ask the Minister to comment on that when he appears at the Dispatch Box. The only real relevance of a measure of this kind to the public finances is its impact on the Government’s fiscal rules. Those fiscal rules are based on levels of debt and borrowing at the end of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast period in five years’ time. The rules that the Chancellor has claimed she will sign up to were already being met when the Government came into office, according to the OBR’s own forecasts.

The Government could have opted to bring this measure in next year, with greater time for scrutiny, better notice for pensioners, more time to drive up pension credit uptakes and perhaps time to consider whether there were much better ways of going about it. It would still have been a broken promise, and we on this side of the House would still have opposed it, but it would have been a much better way to make policy and it would still have delivered exactly the same savings at the end of the forecast period.

Ministers will claim that they needed to make immediate in-year savings, but that is based entirely on a black hole that they have confected themselves. The real reason this is being rushed is pure politics. The Government want to rush this measure through while they can try to blame it on their predecessors in order to avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend, like me, find it inexplicable that the Government should fail to go through the proper process when their own research suggested that thousands of people could die as a result of precisely this measure? That is something that the whole House should find deeply uncomfortable.

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is a very serious step that the Government are taking. Of all the steps that should be properly scrutinised, surely this is one of them. I remember when I was sitting on the other side of the Chamber, I could barely breathe without the cry going out that an impact assessment should be held. It is extraordinary that on such an important measure as this, affecting millions of the most vulnerable, the Labour party should be utterly silent on this issue.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Old people die in cold homes, and they die particularly if they are very old. Does my right hon. Friend think that if the Government are not minded to change their mind entirely, they might look at those aged over 80? Those people are in receipt of the higher rate of winter fuel payment, and paragraph 3 of the regulations points out that there is a difference between those over 80 and those under 80. That might be one way that the Government could make this slightly less worse than it otherwise is.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It has been suggested that the Government are examining ways of ameliorating some of the harshest effects of this policy, and that might be one of the things they consider. On that particular point, we cannot escape the fact that, whatever age people are, over two thirds of those who are currently pensioners below the poverty line will lose their winter fuel payments under the current arrangements.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I have the honour to represent the most remote, the most sparsely populated and the coldest constituency. The Secretary of State, in responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), said earlier that the Government would try to maximise the take-up of pension credit, and I accept that, but would they accept that sheer remoteness and sheer distance can militate against people taking up this offer? I ask the Government, via the right hon. Gentleman, to please look at this issue, because it means an awful lot to my constituents.

[Mel Stride]

I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

The reality is that the Government want to rush this through so that they can blame it on their predecessor and avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done, other than to meet the political ends of the Labour party. They are ripping the plaster off and hoping that the country will have forgotten by the time of the next general election. That is at the heart of it, but we will not forget. We would not have been given the opportunity to debate and vote on this measure without significant pressure from the Opposition and the wider public. This is nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and everything to do with political expediency—no scrutiny, no impact assessment, no notice. This is an appalling way to govern.