Work gives life meaning. Through dedicated effort, whether it’s expended in the workplace or at home, personal lives are enriched, allowing others to benefit too. Nevertheless, years of toil should be balanced by a comfortable retirement. So support for costs in later life represents the fruits of earlier labour. Being able to look forward, with confidence, to the time and space retirement brings ought to be the entitlement of every working Briton.
Being safe and warm are the most basic of needs. With that in mind, Winter Fuel Payments were introduced by a previous Conservative Government to assuage the fear and effects of high energy bills in bitterly cold winters. Protecting pensioners from ever needing to make a choice between eating and staying warm at home must surely be right.
Nearly 12 million annual Winter Fuel and Cost of Living payments were given to older people last December, bringing security, dignity and warmth to those in retirement.
Alongside this, the Triple Lock on pensions, one of the proudest achievements of recent years, means that the state pension increases each April in line with whichever is highest – inflation, average wage increases, or 2.5%. As a result of the Triple Lock, introduced in 2010, the state pension increased this April in line with average earnings, so that someone in receipt of the full state pension will receive an additional £900 a year.
By contrast, Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor, decided to scrap Winter Fuel Payments for the vast majority of pensioners and ditch a cap on their social care costs in order to fund a £9.4bn pay settlement to selected public sector workers. Retirees cannot, by definition, withhold their labour to strike for higher pay, unlike those doctors whose militancy has driven up NHS waiting times or train drivers who, despite a pay offer to increase their salaries from an average of £60,000 to £69,000, are holding the Government to ransom by threatening to grind our country to a standstill.
The new Government’s decision to scrap support for so many pensioners in need is causing distress here in Lincolnshire, so on behalf of my constituents, I have tabled Parliamentary Questions to establish just how many will be affected by this controversial cut. Some estimates suggest that it will lead to a loss of up to £300 each for around 10 million pensioners. Whereas I take the straightforward view that all pensioners must be afforded dignity and respect in retirement.
Even those pensioners still eligible to keep Winter Fuel Payments will face 243 questions they must answer correctly to do so! The Department for Work and Pensions has been accused of deliberately making pension credit inaccessible to retirees with a 22-page form that includes queries such as, “Does your partner agree to your application?”.
Last year, there were 25,400 people in receipt of the State Pension in South Holland and the Deepings, with a further 2,376 people in receipt of Pension Credit. Only the second group will retain a Winter Fuel Payment, meaning that 23,000 will not. Yet many of these pensioners cannot afford to be penalised. As I pledged when standing successfully for re-election: I will always stand firm in support for the State Pension, the Triple Lock and Winter Fuel Payments, for little marks our nation more than how we treat those who have spent a lifetime working, paying taxes, and bringing up the generation who now run much of Britain.
