Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Torsten Bell and Helen Whately

Monday 12th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I suspect that the hon. Members on the Government Front Bench are now surrounded: I suspect that they are the only people left in this Chamber who are prepared to defend the cutting of the winter fuel payment. Dozens of their own MPs have now joined a long list of people telling the Government that they have got it wrong, including the Welsh First Minister—talking about learning lessons from Wales—the money-saving expert Martin Lewis, and voters up and down this country. The Conservatives have led this campaign from the start, but if the Government will not listen to us, will they now listen to everyone else and think again?

[Torsten Bell]

We have set out our policy, but here we are 10 months on and I have no idea what the Conservatives’ policy is. I am not even sure that they know what their policy is. For all the shouting, there is no promise to reinstate a universal winter fuel payment. There is one policy from the Leader of the Opposition, the very woman who called for the winter fuel payment to be means-tested in 2022: now, she wants to means-test the entire state pension. Apparently, that is “exactly the sort of thing we will look at”. She thinks that is bold policymaking. It is not—it is bonkers.

[Mr Speaker]

The good news is that the Minister has no responsibility for the Opposition.

[Helen Whately]

That is not something that the Leader of the Opposition said. To the point in hand—the winter fuel payment—I wonder for how much longer this tone-deaf final stand will go on. Every time the Government talk about winter fuel payments, they make out that they had no choice, but that is simply not true. To govern is to choose. At best, this policy was only ever going to save £1 billion or so, but they are spending £8 billion on setting up an energy company, and the cost of asylum hotels will rise to £15 billion under Labour. This has always been a choice, and it is the wrong one. Can the Minister guarantee that next winter, every single one of the 750,000 poorest pensioners who missed out on the winter fuel payment this year will receive it?

[Torsten Bell]

I can guarantee that this Government are going to deliver on our priorities for pensioners by raising the state pension, with a £470-a-year increase this April, and saving the NHS, with a £26 billion increase every single year. What will the Conservatives be doing? None of that, because they oppose every single measure required to fund it. We know what the Tory plan is, because we have just lived through it: pensioner poverty rising and the NHS collapsing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Torsten Bell and Helen Whately

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his place. I have a simple question for him: how many people are still waiting for their winter fuel payment?

[Torsten Bell]

The largest campaign to drive up pension credit take-up is now under way, and it will continue in the years ahead. What we are seeing at present is that anyone who made their claim for pension credit before 21 December will receive their winter fuel payment when that claim is processed.

[Helen Whately]

So the answer is that the Minister does not know. He does not know how many people are waiting for their winter fuel payment. He does not know how many people are stuck in the pension credit backlog. He does not know when they will hear about their claims. He does not know who has had help from their local council. He does not know how many people who lost their winter fuel payment have ended up in hospital this winter. He and his Department have dodged or refused to answer every single one of those questions in recent weeks. Will he commit to a full review of the winter fuel payment cut so that we can get those answers?

[Torsten Bell]

I will commit to fighting every day to avoid a repeat of the exercise under the last Government whereby pensioner poverty rose by 300,000, having fallen by 1 million under the last Labour Government. We will make sure that we publish details of the take-up of pension credit by the end of February.