Torsten Bell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I am glad to hear about my hon. Friend’s previous role, and it is encouraging to see what charities representing older people have put out over the last few hours. As I said earlier, Age UK has said that this is the right thing to do and that it will bring much-needed reassurance for older people and their families.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. We need to make sure that we are seeing child poverty fall and seeing extra help for families through free school meals, as well as through the breakfast clubs that she mentions. We also need to see more progress on pensioner poverty. That is why today we are saying that the threshold will be well above the incomes of pensioners who are in poverty. We do not want to see that poverty in the years ahead, which is exactly why we have made this change today.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  As always, I thank my hon. Friend for his well-put thoughts. He is absolutely right that pensioner poverty fell significantly, halving under the last Labour Government, before unfortunately rising by 200,000 people under the Conservatives, but we must not be complacent about the headline of falling pensioner poverty, because there are wider problems. [ Interruption. ] I am glad that the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) welcomes it. The point I am coming to is that the stagnating incomes of working-age households under the last Labour Government moved across to stagnant incomes for pensioners and no falls in absolute poverty for pensioners under the Conservatives. There are subsets of pensioners, such as single pensioners, private renters and others, where we see lasting problems. It is important to see this in the round, but my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) is absolutely right to say that we must move further on child poverty. He will have seen last week’s announcement on free school meals in England, with consequentials for the devolved Administrations, and we will come forward further with a child poverty strategy soon.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and we always have interesting conversations. The Minister for Social Security and Disability will have heard the point she made. I gently say that the number of people receiving personal independence payments is forecast to continue to grow in every single one of the years ahead. That is after changes were set out by this Government. That important point sometimes gets lost in this debate.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is trying to put words in my mouth and he will not succeed. We have been clear. What I said in my statement is that we have come to the House today, before the summer recess, particularly to deal with the issue that he is raising, which is to provide absolute certainty for pensioners in England and Wales that they will be receiving the winter fuel payment this winter if their income is below £35,000. I agree with him that that is an important level of certainty to provide, and that is why I am here today.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My 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 millionaires receive each year from the Exchequer hundreds of pounds towards their winter fuel payments—people have recognised that for years. The Government are making the tough choice of saying that that we will no longer pay the winter fuel payment in that way.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My short, sharp answer is that wages have grown in the first 10 months of this Government faster than in the first 10 years of the last Conservative Government. Interest rates have been cut four times. My hon. Friend is right to say that progress is being made, and that needs to continue. We need to ensure that more people feel the benefits of that growth in their pockets. The changes we are making to winter fuel payments today are one of those benefits. I can confirm that there will be a block grant adjustment exactly as she sets out.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady’s question gives me the opportunity to praise the work done by all kinds of charities—in some cases through supporting pension credit uptake and, in the case of better funded foundations, providing direct support to pensioners. That is all very welcome. She is right to raise the wider question about sources of energy, but of course the winter fuel payment is a cash benefit that can be used for all kinds of energy.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend always does a good job of not only representing Harlow, but remembering the economic progress that is being made. If anyone did not hear what he just said, he talked about rising growth, rising wages, interest rates falling and a country back on the path to success.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  This 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 shadow Chancellor to give a speech—

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Is 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 next week and call for universal winter fuel payments? If the Conservatives are calling for universal winter fuel payments, they need to set out how that will be funded. This is a Government who have made their choice. It is right to means-test the winter fuel payment, because millionaires should not receive it. If the Conservatives do not know what their policy is on that, they will not know their policy on anything else.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  It is a fair question. All means-test thresholds do involve judgments—I have been completely honest with the House about that—and the judgment we have come to is that we want to see the vast majority of pensioners receiving the winter fuel payment. We want to be absolutely sure that no lower-income pensioners will miss out. That is what brought us to a £35,000 threshold. It also means that those on higher incomes—the richest 20% or 25% of pensioners—will not receive it.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  What Labour MPs want is a Labour Government who bring down child poverty, and that is what we will do. They want a Government who take responsible decisions, including difficult ones on tax and on means-testing the winter fuel payment, so that we can invest in public services and turn around the disgrace that there has been in Britain’s public realm for far too long.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I 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 £35,000, which answers his question.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I can clear that up, in the case of the Liberal Democrats and Reform. They have the same policy—not for the first time, I might add—which is definitely to give winter fuel payments to millionaires. I have no idea what the position of the Conservative party is, and I have been here for an hour and a quarter. Actually, I have been in the House for the last 11 months, and I have still not been able to fathom what the Conservative party’s policy is, but I think it is to not learn any lesson from Liz Truss.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  Obviously, I agree with my hon. Friend in lots of ways, but it is really important to dwell on the point that he made at the beginning of his question. Through these changes, the vast majority of pensioners— over three quarters—will receive winter fuel payments this winter. We can give them the necessary reassurance that they do not need to do anything for that to happen, even if they are on a higher income.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  That is an absolutely crucial point and has been central to the work that we have done to decide on the policy. We want a system of automatic payment, so that pensioners do not need to do anything to claim the payments, and one that is automatic for those who have incomes above £35,000, so that they do not have to take action if they need to have the funding recouped, unless they choose to opt out. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we need a simple system that supports pensioners.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  That 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 poverty, halved pensioner poverty and raised wages year after year. That is what this Government will do again.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My 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 around the average earnings level. On policy in Scotland, an important principle of devolution is that those are decisions for the Scottish Government, but they are also decisions for which they will be held accountable.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I 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 deceased. I want to be clear that His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will never pursue any estate for the winter fuel payment alone. She also asks about the level of savings. As I set out in my statement, the savings will be £450 million a year in England and Wales. That is very clear, and it is a significant saving. More broadly, the hon. Lady talks about an apology. She comes here representing the party of Liz Truss and lectures anybody else about apologies; she comes here representing the party of flatlining wages, rising debt and a 200,000 increase in pensioners in poverty, and asks anybody else to apologise. I have never heard such nonsense. We have listened to pensioners. For all her sound and fury—she was at her most furious today—I still cannot tell what the Conservatives’ policy is, 11 months on. For all the rhetoric and shouting, it sounds like she might support the means-testing of winter fuel payments. After all, that was the policy of her party’s leader, who once also supported means-testing the entire state pension in one of her bolder moments. Conservative Members say that the policy is not much comfort to pensioners, but Age UK says the exact opposite: charity director Caroline Abrahams said that this announcement is “the right thing to do”. Martin Lewis says that it is a “big improvement”. [ Interruption. ] There is a lot of chuntering from the Conservative Front Benchers. Maybe their Back Benchers can work out what the Front-Bench policy is by the time they get to their feet in a few minutes’ time. I have no idea whatsoever what the Conservative party’s policy is. More widely, when it comes to pensioners, the Government’s priorities are to raise the state pension and rescue the NHS. The triple lock will see state pension spending rise by £31 billion annually over this Parliament. Some £26 billion is being invested into the NHS because we inherited in England a disgraceful situation in which more than one in five pensioners aged over 75 were on waiting lists. There is no excuse for that legacy from the Conservative party. Neither of those forms of progress—raising the state pension and investing in the NHS—would be possible without the difficult decisions that we have had to make on tax. Those are difficult decisions that every Opposition party has opposed. Only this Government can provide that crucial support for pensioners, because we will do what is necessary to turn that support from rhetoric into reality.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  That 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 have chosen a threshold that is well above the income level of pensioners in poverty, and it will ensure that more than three-quarters of pensioners receive the benefit of the winter fuel payment in England and Wales. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is currently in line with average earnings. It is important to have clarity for pensioners—a point that the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), just made. We will leave the £35,000 at the current level, as all thresholds in the income tax system are frozen for the coming year, so that pensioners know that that is the threshold and there are no surprises. Decisions about future uprating will be for future Budgets.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, those are decisions for the Scottish Government. However, as I said, I have spoken to the relevant Ministers in the Scottish Government today. There will be a block grant adjustment to reflect this higher spending in England and Wales.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. We want to make sure that the vast majority of pensioners can receive winter fuel payments. We want to make that as easy as possible, which means making receipt automatic.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  The point about certainty for pensioners is important—I think that is the point the hon. Gentleman is making. As I said earlier, we are setting the £35,000 threshold so that people become aware of it in the coming months. It is a round number, and we do not intend to change it in the years ahead, although further in the future, yes, there will be questions about uprating, which will be considered in the normal way.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I 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 system. On the wider questions that he raises, I will say that the Government have obviously set out the position—I think the position of most people in the country—that we cannot continue with a position where one in eight young people are out of work or where we see 1,000 people a day flowing on to personal independence payments. We need a better system, focusing on supporting those who can work into work—the Minister for Social Security and Disability is setting out the case on that. I do not think anybody should support the position of leaving the status quo as it is.