Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael McCann and Steve Webb

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

4. How many people currently claiming a state pension will benefit from the new higher rate state pension under his proposals for a single tier scheme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

People who reach state pension age before single-tier implementation will receive a state pension in line with existing rules. Existing pensioners already receive the triple lock designed to ensure that the pension rises by at least 2.5% each year. The single-tier reforms are designed to respond to the challenges facing working people today.

[Mr McCann]

I am grateful for the Minister’s response. Will he confirm that Britain’s 12 million current pensioners and 4 million future pensioners will not benefit at all from the Government’s proposed changes?

Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Debate between Michael McCann and Steve Webb

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

It is intriguing that, in presenting a 30-minute explanation of why we should spend a further £600 million, the right hon. Gentleman should remove the bit about where the money should come from, which seems to me to be fairly central to the debate.

Faced with that baseline of a proposed reversion to a £200 winter fuel payment and an £8.50 cold weather payment, we could simply have gone ahead with the previous plans, and found our £70 billion to £80 billion on top of that. However, we took the view—as does the right hon. Gentleman—that fuel poverty matters, and we therefore found the money that would enable us to reverse the planned cut in the cold weather payment. I believe that ours was the right priority. If we are concerned about the most vulnerable when it is most cold in the coldest of winters, we should bear in mind that an increase from £8.50 to £25 gives people the confidence to turn up their heating when it is bitterly cold. The system even allows cold weather payments to be triggered by a forecast. It need not actually have been freezing cold; we merely have to expect it to be freezing cold.

Last winter in Northern Ireland, we made 672,000 cold weather payments at a cost of £16.8 million. Had we not reversed the earlier decision, the value of those payments would have fallen by about two thirds. Our decision put about £10 million into the hands of the poorest pensioners and disabled people in Northern Ireland during a bitterly cold winter, and I am proud that we made it.

[Mr McCann]

Many constituents throughout the country, including mine, will not be able to gain access to cold weather payments because the necessary monitoring equipment is not there.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. A number of Members in all parts of the House contact me about cold weather payments for which I am responsible. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), for example, wrote to me saying that he did not think that the cold weather stations in his constituency matched the actual pattern of cold weather.

I have been very impressed by the work of my officials, who take seriously every representation received about cold weather stations. We change them every year in response to such representations. There will be stations in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but if he thinks that they are in the wrong place or measuring the wrong data, I can tell him that we work very closely with the Met Office, and respond thoroughly and carefully to all submissions. As far as I am aware, I have not received a submission from the hon. Gentleman, but I apologise if he has already contacted me. If he has not, I encourage him to do so.

[Mr McCann]

The issue has been raised both by me and by my predecessor. My nearest cold weather station is Bishopton. As anyone from Scotland will know, East Kilbride is one of the coldest places in the country during the winter. However, there is no monitoring equipment, although South Lanarkshire council has monitoring equipment in the constituency to ensure that gritting takes place. I should be grateful if the matter could be looked into.

[Steve Webb]

I am happy to do that. It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to give me as much detail as possible in writing. In general, as I have said, I have been impressed by how responsive the system is.