Winter Fuel Payment — 19 Mar 2025 at 18:47

That this House calls on the Government to publish data on the number of eligible pensioners it estimates did not receive the Winter Fuel Payment in 2024–25; further calls on the Government to publish data showing the impact of changes to the Winter Fuel Payment on levels of pensioner poverty and the number of hospital admissions; also calls on the Government to set out how it intends to ensure that those eligible for Pension Credit receive it before winter 2025-26; and calls on the Government to apologise for the misery caused to vulnerable pensioners in winter 2024–25.

“We have cut back on heating, we are both in our seventies and we both feel the cold.”

“Tax rises on top of lacklustre economic growth make for a gloomy living standards outlook in 2025.”

“that’s exactly the sort of thing”

“is not in the remit of GB Energy”,

“we will look at Winter Fuel Payments, the largest benefit paid to pensioners, in this context. The benefit is paid regardless of need, giving money to wealthier pensioners when working people on lower incomes do not get similar support. So we will means-test Winter Fuel Payments, focusing assistance on the least well-off pensioners, who are most at risk of fuel poverty.”

“A millionaire I know has a tradition every year: he buys a bottle of vintage wine with his winter fuel payment and invites friends to drink it.”

“It is always the middle people who are squeezed, whose pips are made to squeak, the easy targets”.

“those eligible for Pension Credit receive it”.

“this policy is especially unfair to older pensioners who receive significantly lower pensions than those born later. We have contributed since the age of 16, yet now we feel penalised”

“Although the poorest do receive some help through cold weather payments, they go only to those on income support, who generally have to wait until after the cold weather for help to be available. The payments are no help at all to most pensioners, including…those on the margins of poverty”.

“simply not prepared to allow another winter to go by when pensioners are fearful of turning up their heating, even on the coldest winter days, because they do not know whether they will have the help they need for their fuel bills.”-[Official Report, 25 November 1997; Vol. 301, c. 779-80.]

“The Treasury did not share information with the OBR about the large pressures on RDEL”

“about the unusual extent of commitments against the reserve, or about any plans to manage these pressures down”.

Debate in Parliament |