Winter Fuel Payment

Debate between Seamus Logan and Sarah Olney

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. He makes an important point, although I would say that I welcomed the Chancellor’s commitment last week to work with older people’s charities and local authorities to raise awareness of pension credit. None the less, he is exactly right that many people will have this benefit taken away without knowing that there is pension credit for which they are eligible and should claim.

As the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has highlighted, the DWP has assumed that the uptake of pension credit will increase by just five percentage points, and that will still exclude around 700,000 pensioners. Have the Government made a proper assessment of what the impact will be if uptake of pension credits increases by more than that amount? I continue to call for assurance that the Government will ensure that all those eligible for pension credit claim both the benefit itself and the winter fuel payment.

We will be voting against the scrapping of this stream of support for pensioners. Although we recognise that the Government face difficult choices given the appalling mess left by the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats will continue to advocate for the necessity of winter fuel payments. The mismanagement of our economy by the outgoing Conservative Government has left formidable challenges and we understand that undoing that damage will not be easy.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

Whatever fiscal pressures are being addressed here today, we have heard about the additional deaths that could possibly result from this measure. Does the hon. Member share my disgust at some Members celebrating the result of the previous vote as if it were a football match?

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am afraid that I cannot comment because I did not see that, but I thank him for raising it.

It is not right for the consequences of the decisions of the outgoing Conservative Government and this burden to be carried by some of the most vulnerable in our society. Those with the broadest shoulders should carry a heavier burden. Liberal Democrats have set out detailed proposals to tackle fuel poverty and we are calling on the Government to look at them very seriously. That includes steps such as: launching an emergency home energy upgrade programme, with free insulation and heat pumps for low-income households; introducing a social tariff for the most vulnerable to provide targeted energy discounts for vulnerable households; and implementing a proper windfall tax on the super-profits of oil and gas producers and traders, to raise vital revenue. We have also called on the Government to tackle the wider cost of living crisis, including by investing an extra £1 billion a year in our farmers to bring down food prices, increasing the carer’s allowance and expanding it to more carers, and removing the two-child limit and the benefit cap.

More than 2 million pensioners are currently living in poverty. They have had a tremendously difficult time during the cost of living crisis, dealing with record high energy bills and eye-watering food costs. That is why the Liberal Democrats are proud to have introduced the triple lock when we were in government, lifting countless vulnerable pensioners out of poverty, and why we are strongly committed to ensuring it remains in place. Pensioners deserve to have the support and the security of knowing that the triple lock will be there in the long term.

We acknowledge the dire economic situation the new Government have inherited, yet we have heard warning calls from sector representatives, including Age UK, Disability Rights UK and many pensioners themselves, regarding the damage that this cut might cause. As the Government try to clear up the Conservative party’s mess, they must ensure that that does not come at the expense of pensioners and families who will struggle to heat their homes this winter.