Contributions
803 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentThat is exactly the point I have just made: what are Labour Governments here for? Building a fairer Britain. What did the last Labour Government do? They brought down child…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentIs the Conservative party going to send out the shadow Chancellor to give a speech in which I cannot tell whether he is apologising for Liz Truss, then come to this House the very…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentThis is why I am confused. What is the position of the Conservative party? Is it to support means-testing of the winter fuel payment—yes or no? Are you going to send out the…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI thank my hon. Friend for welcoming today’s policy announcement. We will continue to discuss with him all aspects of how his constituents are treated in the social security…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI always enjoy discussing technical details with the right hon. Gentleman. I set the position out clearly in my initial statement: means-testing is based on taxable income of…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend is right to highlight the targeting. Setting the means test threshold at £35,000 ensures that it is well above the income levels of pensioners in poverty and is…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentThe right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the issue of low take-up of pension credit and he refers to the figure of more than 700,000 pensioners, which unfortunately was true…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend is always quite right. I spoke to Ministers in the devolved Administrations today to set out in advance the details of this policy and to spell out, for example, to…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentThat is an important question. There is always a judgment in choosing a threshold for any means-tested benefit, and I want to be completely straight with the House about that. We…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentAs I was saying, we do need to make sure that low-income families right across the board are receiving the support they need. That is why we set out changes to free school meals…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend is right to raise questions about energy prices—an issue for households of all ages that have been living through the cost of living crisis of recent years. The…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI thank the hon. Member for his comments and his welcome for this change; he called it the right change. He asked about different treatment of single and couple households; I can…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend sets out the principle case for means-testing the winter fuel payment very well indeed. I do not think that anybody with common sense thinks it right that…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI will deal directly with two of the questions raised because it is important to provide reassurance. The right hon. Lady asks what will happen with the estate of someone who is…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentOn 21 May, the Prime Minister told this House that the Government wanted to extend eligibility for winter fuel payments to a wider range of pensioners in England and Wales. Today…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI absolutely can. As I said, we need to provide the reassurance that the vast majority of pensioners will receive this support, and will not have to do anything to get the payment…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that faith in the system has been strained by the failure of the last 14 years—economic failure, public service failure and a failure of…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentMy hon. Friend raises an important point, which is that as economic growth returns, as it has over recent months, what matters is that it feeds through to rising living standards,…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentI thank my hon. Friend for his question. We have gone from competing over temperatures to competing over volume of pensioners, but both are important. The point he makes will echo…09 Jun 2025HANSARD Winter Fuel PaymentWe have been making sure that there has been support over the course of the last winter, and the hon. Gentleman will have seen the increase in the state pension at the beginning…09 Jun 2025