Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)
Debate between Steve Webb and Gordon Banks(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Steve Webb
The context is the need to save public money, but there are a variety of ways that we can do that. One way has already triggered the better use of social housing stock, but we are still in the overall context stage at the moment.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The Minister needs to understand that the real solution is growth in the economy: getting businesses to pay more corporation tax because they are making more profit; and getting more people into jobs and paying income tax, not this draconian and horrid tax that the Government are proposing.
Steve Webb
The structural deficit, which is the part of the deficit that does not disappear as the economy grows, was estimated to be approximately £80 billion. That is what we have had to tackle, regardless of the ups and downs of the economy. That is the core deficit that the Labour party left us to deal with—these are Labour cuts.
Steve Webb
No, I am afraid that the hon. Lady is not correct in saying that. There will be a range of responses to this change, which I will run through later in my remarks. Some people will stay where they are and will pay the shortfall; some people will use a spare room for a lodger or for sub-letting; some people will work or work more hours; and some people will move. Our impact assessment has a range of modelling on how people will respond, but it clearly includes people staying where they are and paying the shortfall—that is where the saving comes from.
Gordon Banks
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. A minute ago the Minister said that these were Labour cuts. May I seek your advice and clarification about who is in government?
Winter Fuel Allowances
Debate between Steve Webb and Gordon Banks(11 years, 12 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Good morning, Mr Amess. I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) on securing this debate and on the efforts to which he has gone to raise the issue. I recall the Friday in question, when I had forsaken the joys of Thornbury and Yate to be with him in Westminster. I stood fully ready to respond to his debate, but unfortunately did not have the opportunity to do so. It is good to have the opportunity now to respond to the important and serious issues that he has raised.
The hon. Gentleman made the point that for a section of the population—as he rightly said, not just in rural Scotland but in rural parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland—when they pay their big winter fuel bills is an issue. Whereas many people might pay around Christmas or early in the new year, the folk that we are talking about might pay in the autumn, for instance. He asked whether we could pay those folk their winter fuel payments early, and suggested that we would not do so during the first year after they reached women’s state pension age, because then they would lose out by a couple of months, but we could perhaps do it from year two.
One challenge of ours in responding to the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is that at the moment the Government have a fairly slick and efficient way of getting those important payments to people. We have about 12 million pensioners in the land, and we make the payments as automatically as possible. To give him a feel for the problems involving claims, there is a set of men who are below the men’s state pension age but above the women’s state pension age who must claim for winter fuel payments, because we do not know that they exist. A 63-year-old man is entitled to a winter fuel payment, but does not receive a pension, so he must make a claim. It creates a big problem of complexity and take-up if a claim must be made; it is far better in terms of getting money to the people who need it if the process is as automatic as possible.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Steve Webb
I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, as I want to respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Angus.
The hon. Member for Angus wants to ensure that the Government get payments to people. We want to ensure that we do so when we need to. Even with our systems, we do not manage to get the money to everybody before Christmas, although we get it to the vast majority—more than 95%, I think. One way to address his concern would be to bring forward the eligibility date for everybody; for instance, we could bring it forward from September to July. That would achieve his goal of getting the money to the folk who are off the grid when they need it.
The problem is that the vast bulk of people would then get their lump sum in autumn, rather than when the winter fuel bill arrives, which would be to their detriment. Surprising research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that because the money is labelled, branded and seen as a winter fuel payment, even though it is just cash and people can spend it on what they like, they are far more likely to use it for fuel bills than other cash coming in. We would be reluctant to move the bulk of payments away from the time when people’s principal bills arrive.
In that case, the hon. Gentleman’s proposition is that we identify a separate category of people who are off the mains gas grid. He said in his remarks that people would have to claim only once. I will return in a moment to the point about the claims process, but we would have to ensure that the data were accurate every year. To give a simple example, when I bought the house that I live in, which is not in the middle of nowhere by any means, it had no mains gas, so for one year we were off-grid. Had I been a pensioner when I bought it, I would have been entitled to early payment. The next year, we were connected to the gas grid. Somebody would have had to know that I was no longer entitled to the early payment. Either I would have had to report it to the Department for Work and Pensions, or the Department would have had to send people into back gardens; I do not know.
We would need a mechanism. Although the bulk of properties would be the same from one year to the next, there would be in-flow. New properties are built off the grid, and properties off the grid would come on to the grid. It is not as straightforward as the hon. Gentleman suggests. It would not be a one-off process in which once someone was in, they would qualify for ever.
Steve Webb
No. Because the home is better insulated than the one next door, the fuel bills are lower. The net effect is the same, except that when the loan is finally repaid people are living in a home with cheaper fuel bills. If I could choose between two properties in a street, one which had been green dealed and one that had not, I would go for the former, because the loan will come to an end and then I will have lower fuel bills than the house next door.
Steve Webb
No, because the debate was called by the hon. Member for Angus.
The hon. Member for Angus was right to say that some pensioners may be wary of this scheme. I accept that. We need to look, for example, at budgeting support. I am a great fan of the credit union movement. We could find out whether we could do more to help low-income customers of the sort that the hon. Gentleman mentions with budgeting through the year. I am worried about our changing significantly a system, which runs pretty smoothly and efficiently for the vast majority of low-income pensioners who really need it, for a sub-group, within which many could manage with the right support.
A better approach would be to ensure, first, that the homes of the people we are talking about are as effectively insulated as possible and, secondly, that where it is a budgeting issue, which it essentially is, we help those with budgeting problems through other routes. Just being off the grid does not make the million or so households that are off-grid poor. I was not poor when I bought my house, but I was off the grid. So I would not need my winter fuel payment, if I were entitled to it, two months early. If we changed the system, we would be doing a lot of administrative messing around and keeping track of properties, with people making claims and signing off the system, and all of that, when this could be much more targeted.
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue. People who heat their homes through off-grid routes are paying more and are more at risk of fuel poverty—that is correct—but we need a more targeted approach, rather than a broad-brush approach. We have to ensure that we do not mess up a system that works relatively efficiently. Although winter fuel payments are made to 12 million people every year, most Members of Parliament only get the odd complaint or a handful of letters each year, saying, “I didn’t get mine” or “I got it late”. Broadly, the system works. We do not want to mess up a system that works and spend millions on administration that could be better spent supporting vulnerable households.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. His suggestion that, if the oil companies want to do more for vulnerable customers, the Government should try to help them, is good. I am happy to explore that. If he lets me know which suppliers are interested in doing this, the sort of data they would require and what schemes they would come up with, I am happy to explore whether there is more we can do to help in that regard.