Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson]

No, I will not give way.

The one thing I do know is that the people who will complain most about this measure in Northern Ireland—Sinn Féin—are not even here to defend the vulnerable, whom they will claim they wish to protect.

Government Members have talked about the measurement and recording of child poverty. I would have thought—indeed, the DWP review indicated—that the most important source of short-term child poverty, and of the length of time people are in such poverty, is the level of income. It stands to reason: you don’t have to be a genius to know that if you don’t have money, you’re poor. If you want to lift people out of poverty, what do you do? You ensure that they get more money. If we remove that as a measure, we ignore the most fundamental aspect of what causes poverty and what puts children in poverty. Yes, in the longer run, as the review says, educational qualifications, family stability and so on are important, but in the long run, as Keynes said, we are all dead. If we want to deal with the problem now, we cannot ignore the level of income.

Members from all parts of the House should be concerned about the way in which the Bill divides the cap into two. But that is not the end of the matter, because the Bill makes it clear that the Secretary of State can review the caps at any time. All he or she has to consider is “the national economic situation” and

“any other matters that the Secretary of State considers relevant”.

Then the Government can introduce changes by regulation.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his point about the difference in the cap on welfare and benefits between London and the rest of the country. That measure is very clearly the thin end of the wedge, and, if we are not careful, what will eventually happen with benefits and public sector pay will be the introduction of regionalisation.

[Sammy Wilson]

Indeed. The Policy Exchange think tank, which prepared the welfare manifesto for the Government, talked about the introduction of a two-tier cap, stating:

“The first stage in creating a regionalised system would be to create two levels of Benefit Cap, one for London and the South East where average incomes within the UK are highest, and one for the whole of the rest of the UK.”

The measure before us is the first step towards regionalisation, and we ought to be aware that in this Bill is contained the embryo of further cuts to the poorest regions of the United Kingdom, because that is where we are likely to find the pressure to try to reduce the welfare bill further.

On tax credits, I support the Government’s desire and objective to get people into work—to make work pay, to give people an incentive. That is why the proposals on apprenticeships, full employment reporting and so on are all good. But the change in universal credit, the freezing of benefits and the change in tax credits are, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) pointed out, an attack on aspiration. It is an attack on people who are in work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

My hon. Friend is a neighbour of mine and I know that there is a lot of cultural activity and innovation in Swindon. He will have many small community groups that will want to apply for funding, and I will certainly assist him as much as I can. The Heritage Lottery Fund is extremely keen to make the application process as simple as possible.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating local communities who are taking initiatives to raise funds to commemorate the first world war, particularly those in the Shankill road in my constituency who are getting together with people in other communities to raise a suitable commemorative memorial in Woodvale park? That is a tremendous initiative and it deserves to be congratulated.

Welfare Reform

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Sheridan, to have this debate under your chairmanship. I want to explore where we are with welfare reform and the options for the future. The coalition Government inherited a broken welfare system that was in desperate need of reform. We have started and are seeing through the most far-reaching reforms in more than half a century. The reforms are not about saving money; they are about saving lives. They are about replacing dependence with independence.

Let us look at what has been done to date. Labour left the biggest ever peacetime deficit, with £120 million a day in interest bills. Under Labour, welfare spending increased by 60%, taking inflation into account. That is £3,000 a year for every household in Britain. More than £170 billion was spent on tax credits, four and a half times the cost of the benefits they replaced. By the end, out-of-work benefits were increasing nearly twice as quickly as earnings. That was the toxic legacy left by the Labour party, and that is the out-of-control spending that the Government have fought to keep in check while protecting pensioners with the triple lock.

Welfare spending is now falling as a share of GDP. Savings of £25 billion will have been made by the end of this financial year, with £50 billion having been saved by the end of the Parliament. At every turn Labour has been unapologetic. Labour has opposed every single reform, including universal credit, and has provided no ideas. Labour has nothing to say. Indeed, the few policies developed so far are spending pledges, rather than savings. For example, the jobs guarantee will cost a staggering £1 billion. On my count, it is the 10th time that Labour’s bank bonus tax has been spent. To every problem, its answer is the same: more spending, more borrowing, more debt and more welfare. It is small wonder that the Labour party is increasingly known as the welfare party.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that we need to reduce the benefits bill by a third, but Labour has failed to name even one working age benefit it would cut. Government Members have given thought to the reforms that could be made to promote a greater sense of fairness: fairness to people on welfare, so that they might have independence in place of dependence; and fairness to hard-working people and their families, who expect their taxes to be used to help people escape poverty and welfare, rather than further to enchain them within it.

I have been giving thought to how work-based benefits could be reformed, particularly to improve the position of women in the workplace. In our system, industrial injuries benefits cost £907 million a year, while maternity pay costs £2.3 billion. The maternity pay system, however, too often hampers rather than safeguards the position of women in the workplace. There are still too many barriers to hiring women. Too often employers are scared of employing women who may go on maternity leave. Even the Labour peer, Lord Sugar, was moved to say:

“We have maternity laws where people are entitled to too much.”

He also said that the prospect of women becoming pregnant and taking maternity leave puts businesses off hiring women.

That attitude needs to change, as does the shocking complexity of the system, which involves complex reclaims though the tax system and leaves people at risk of their employer going bust or otherwise failing to pay. Women are increasingly self-employed, yet the self-employed are worse off with maternity allowance, and injury benefits are sparse indeed. Meanwhile, pay is not even at minimum wage levels. Pay is set at £137 a week, which is a far cry from the £220 received by a minimum wage earner for a 35-hour week. To my mind, the system is ripe for reform, to safeguard and improve the position of women in the workplace, to increase simplicity and security, to treat the employed and self-employed alike, and to pay parental leave more fairly.

How can that be done? We should think about a new system of workplace benefits, paid for by the workplaces of the nation. We should set up an at-work scheme—a compulsory pooled risk system along the lines of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, backed up by the state but funded by business with reference to the total pay-as-you-earn income tax paid by each business. In return, businesses would see a corresponding cut in their net employers’ national insurance contributions. That way, the cost would not be affected by the number of injuries or the amount of maternity leave that might at any one time affect any one workplace. The at-work scheme would pay out regardless, whether there were no parental leave absences or many. In that way, the fear of the burden of maternity would be reduced, and so too would the barriers to women in the workplace. The self-employed would contribute on the same basis and be treated in the same way as employed people. Pay for leave could more easily be increased from the current £137 a week to the minimum wage level of £220, and that would ensure that the minimum basic standard would be the minimum wage.

We have seen the toxic legacy left by the Labour party and we have passed welfare reforms to save lives and promote independence in place of dependence.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about the future of welfare reform. Will he join me in deploring the fact that the current welfare reform measures have still not been implemented in Northern Ireland, at a possible cost of more than £1 billion over the next five years? The Finance Minister there indicated that the Northern Ireland Executive have already lost £15 million. We have negotiated good tweaks to the system to suit the Northern Ireland situation, yet Sinn Fein holds up that reform, at a massive cost to the Northern Ireland block grant. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is time for Northern Ireland to move into line with what is happening elsewhere?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Yes, I would. It is about fairness to hard-working people and their families. They pay their taxes and want to see those taxes used to help people escape poverty, rather than to enchain them within it. They want their taxes to fund doctors, teachers and nurses, rather than those on welfare. It is also about fairness to people on welfare and their having a greater sense of independence, rather than being locked into a cycle of dependence. I hope that the Northern Ireland Executive will think more carefully about the future, and fairness for working people and those not in work.

In the absence of any positive ideas from the Labour party, I hope the Government will consider new reforms like the one I am suggesting. It would promote the role of women in the workplace, increase simplicity and security, treat employed and self-employed alike, and ensure that maternity and parental leave is paid fairly and that the system is funded by the workplaces of the nation on a long-term sustainable basis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

If I did not know of the link of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) with the John Clare Trust, I would have a quite serious problem both with my short-term and long-term memory, as he has mentioned it several hundred times in the deliberations of the House.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Will the Minister undertake to discuss with the Northern Ireland Executive particular issues relating to the operation of the Big Lottery Fund in Northern Ireland? If he has, will he update the House on the result of those discussions?

[Mr Vaizey]

I will certainly have a meeting with the right hon. Gentleman, if he so desires, and discuss issues relating to the national lottery in Northern Ireland, which is where, in 1994, I bought my first lottery ticket.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I am aware of that report, and that is another important issue that is worth raising with social media companies. There is a debate in Europe at the moment on the future of data protection regulations, and it is important to put on the table the issue of people being able to retrieve their data from websites to which they have freely given them.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Following on from the very good debate that we had in the House on cyber-bullying and from the question that the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) has just asked about plans for a meeting, is it not the case that the Minister and all of us need to do more to educate and help not only teachers but parents about these dangers? Should we not also be helping parents to understand their responsibilities and advising them on what more they can do to protect their children?

[Mr Vaizey]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The work we have done with ISPs has been to give parents the tools on how to block sites. I am particularly pleased that the main ISPs have come together and put £25 million on the table to begin a campaign—I think it starts this spring—to educate parents who, for many reasons, are not as familiar with the technology as are their own children.

Mesothelioma Bill [Lords]

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Nothing is perfect, but there was nothing there before, and if we had carried on the way we were going, nothing would be there, going forward, for people who are suffering so much, and who need help today. [Interruption.] It is no good the hon. Gentleman chuntering; he has had an opportunity to intervene, and perhaps later he will make a speech. That would be more useful than chuntering. As a friend of mine, he should know better, because I will not respond to that sort of chuntering. It just wastes time in the House.

The scheme is intended to be an alternative to seeking civil damages, which we still want people to do, if the opportunity arises. The driving principle is that where adequate records are not available—this is why the scheme was developed—the disease has been diagnosed, and there has been negligence or a breach of the statutory duty, a person should still be able to access payment for their injury. That is the crucial part of the Bill. Payments should be made, wherever possible, to the sufferers themselves, while they are still alive; I think that everyone would want that, but sadly it has not been happening. The scheme will therefore be straightforward, simple, and quick to process claims.

Sadly, we expect roughly 28,500 deaths from mesothelioma between July 2012 and March 2024, when the scheme is expected to come to its conclusion. We are seeing a peak at the moment.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I will give way one last time, but then I will have to make some progress.

[Mr Dodds]

I simply wanted to say, given the Minister’s experience in Northern Ireland—the Bill extends to Northern Ireland and the Assembly has passed a legislative consent motion—that many people there will warmly welcome the fact that legislation is being put in place. I would have liked it to go further, but I commend the Government for bringing it forward.

[Mike Penning]

I am very pleased that I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman. The legislative consent process has taken place in Northern Ireland and in Scotland, which is important in ensuring that the Bill can go forward.

If the Bill is passed before the end of the year, the first payments could be made by July 2014, which I think is what we all want. Around 300 people a year could receive an average payment of £115,000, less benefit recovery, which will be around £20,000 on average. Timing is key, because the number of mesothelioma cases is expected to peak in 2015. We must act now and launch the scheme as soon as we can, with the regulations made as soon as possible after Christmas. I expect the regulations to be in place by April 2014.

Let us look quickly at the eligibility criteria. First, an individual has to have been diagnosed with the disease on or after 25 July 2012. Secondly, they were employed at the time of exposure to asbestos, and that exposure was due to negligence or breach of statutory duty on the part of the employer. Thirdly, they have not brought a claim for civil damages against an employer or the employer’s insurer. Fourthly, they are unable to do so—this is not a replacement for civil action. Fifthly, they are not already receiving damages or other payments relating to the disease from another source.

Eligible dependants of diffuse mesothelioma sufferers may apply to the scheme in cases where the person with the disease has died before making an application or while the application was being processed. Eligible dependants will receive exactly the same amount of money as the sufferer would have received.

A sufferer must have been diagnosed on or after 25 July 2012 to be eligible for the scheme. There are always difficulties with cut-off dates, but without one the costs would be unlimited. I know that it is unfortunate, but we have to be pragmatic as we move forward. With a cut-off date, we can proceed with the agreements.

Housing Benefit

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Much of my speech will be about facts, figures and statistics, but contributions thus far, certainly from the Opposition, have focused on the real impact of this policy on people’s lives. Be they people with disabilities, people with access to children at weekends that they cannot maintain or others—there are many more—these are real people, and this has real consequences for their lives, so this debate is about not just facts, figures and statistics, but how this policy affects people’s lives.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

For precisely that reason and because Northern Ireland will be worse affected than any other region of the UK, does the right hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that the Northern Ireland Executive and political parties there are joining together to prevent this from hurting the vulnerable people of Northern Ireland?

[Mr Howarth]

Absolutely, I applaud what is happening in Northern Ireland.

Since the introduction of the bedroom tax, rent arrears in Merseyside have increased by £2.2 million—not to £2.2 million, but by £2.2 million—representing a loss of income that could have built 125 houses in the region, creating jobs and bringing all the other consequences. Some 60% of those in the Liverpool city region in arrears because of the bedroom tax are in arrears for the first time. It is not a habit of theirs, but a direct consequence of the bedroom tax.

Personal Independence Payments

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I can indeed confirm that my hon. Friend is right. We continue to spend £50 billion a year on support for disabled people, which is a fifth higher than the EU average. We are a world leader in how we deal with people with disabilities.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I welcome the statement and the delay in the movement of customers with indefinite awards for 21 months. That is a sign of listening to people’s concerns. Will the Minister reassure me that she and the Department will continue to work closely with the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland, given the concerns in that part of the United Kingdom about the impact of some of these reforms, particularly in deprived areas?

[Esther McVey]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s words. I will indeed work closely with the social development agency and I will be going to Ireland in the not-too-distant future.

Credit Unions

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I commend the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for obtaining the debate and for his good and active work as chairman of the all-party group on credit unions. I am conscious that the Minister who is to reply to the debate is from the Department for Work and Pensions because that Department has been closely involved—recently, in particular—in the long awaited LRO, which is so welcomed by credit unions in this country. However, without detracting from the positive points that have been made about the development and potential of credit unions in Great Britain, I want to highlight some points about credit unions in Northern Ireland. I am aware that there are in the Chamber not only officials from the DWP, but some with a relevant interest from the Treasury.

The LRO has long been sought by the credit union movement in Great Britain. It is great to see that advance, some of whose benefits were highlighted by the hon. Member for East Hampshire. Of course, that development, of itself, will not extend to credit unions in Northern Ireland, as he mentioned, so we have a little source of frustration. The Northern Ireland credit unions have spent many years campaigning to be able to offer as many services as their counterparts in Great Britain—their much smaller counterparts, both as to member numbers and savings. At a time when it looks as if that will now happen—at least the primary measure to permit it is coming with the draft Financial Services Bill—one frustration makes Northern Ireland credit unions a wee bit jealous: the LRO will further enhance what their counterparts in Great Britain can do compared with what they can do. Also, of course, there are issues to do with some of the details of the regulation that might come from the Financial Conduct Authority, courtesy of the Treasury’s plans in relation to the draft Bill and associated developments. Issues of context and content arise in relation to the change.

As the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members acknowledged, the credit union movement in Ireland at large is very strong. It has a long history, well rooted in communities. It is also particularly strong in Northern Ireland. The roots of my predecessor, John Hume, were in the credit union movement: not only did he help to found the movement in my constituency, but he led it in Ireland in the 1960s. In Northern Ireland, we have 163 credit unions, 103 of which are affiliated to the Irish League of Credit Unions. Those tend to be more mature; they have been longer in existence. Some 60 credit unions are associated with the Ulster Federation of Credit Unions. The Irish league has 370,000 members and there are 148,000 borrowing members with total savings of more than £700 million and total loans of more than £430 million, so, given the size of the Northern Ireland population, we are talking about something quite significant.

That is the situation while the credit unions are able to offer their members limited services—essentially just deposits and loans. The beauty of the measures that we hope will proceed—courtesy of the draft Bill and the consultations undertaken by the devolved Department and the Treasury in the past while, in response to the report to the Northern Ireland Assembly of an inquiry that I chaired—is the creation of at least the regulatory openings to allow credit unions in Northern Ireland to offer increased services. That is because some historic anomalies and legislative warps have limited what credit unions in Northern Ireland can do. They are not regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Therefore, they cannot offer services that are, by their nature, regulated by the FSA here.

It looks as if we may be coming to a path forward in that respect, but the credit union movement—both the Ulster federation and the Irish league—have concerns about the context and the detail of what is happening. The recent consultation was shortened to two months instead of three. People are worried that it has been rushed, and that although the changes that could be made afterwards have long been awaited, they may take place relatively quickly, before credit unions have been able to prepare themselves properly, internally and externally, for their impact, and for all the requirements. There is no point imposing change that will add to difficulties and make life hard for busy and effective credit unions.

The federation and the Irish league are also concerned about the content of some of the changes. Some of the proposed changes would take credit unions in Northern Ireland backwards in relation to existing functions. One is the planned reduction in the maximum deposit limit. Credit unions in Northern Ireland have a maximum deposit limit of £15,000. It was raised to that amount in 2006, because it needed to be. The proposal is that under the new arrangements it will be scaled back to £10,000. That will affect 48 credit unions in Northern Ireland, in which there are already people over that savings limit. That is entirely consistent with the culture of credit unions, which is about encouraging thrift through growing savings. To ask credit unions to tell some of their savers that they must take money away seems perverse.

The credit unions that belong to the Irish League of Credit Unions also offer, essentially, a free life-savings insurance service to their members. Whatever the value of a member’s savings on death, a multiple of that will go to their next of kin. Therefore, imposing the new limit will mean a significant change in the benefit that credit unions can offer their members.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the issues affecting credit unions in Northern Ireland, and I agree with him. I have received representations on the issue of borrowing, as have several hon. Members, and it is clear that members’ borrowing ability will be adversely affected, with the effects that he suggests. In the case of Northern Ireland, which has such a mature credit union movement, would it not be a good idea for the FSA and the Government to consider the best examples of what has happened there and perhaps import those, rather than imposing what is suggested for Great Britain on Northern Ireland?

Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House is concerned about pressures on pensioner households this winter with high and rising fuel prices; notes that the Winter Fuel Payment will be £50 lower in the winter of 2011-12 than in each of the last three years for a pensioner aged 60 or over and £100 lower for those pensioners aged 80 or over; and calls on the Government to review the impact of its decisions on Winter Fuel Payments and VAT, and to announce in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement urgent steps to ease the burden on pensioner households.

It is a pleasure to move the motion standing in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. colleagues. This motion is about a life and death issue. Fuel poverty and the effects of cold winter weather on the elderly are a lethal combination. Only today, the Office for National Statistics has published figures for cold-related deaths for England and Wales. That report shows that in 2010-11 there were some 25,700 excess winter deaths among old people in England and Wales, which is roughly the same number as last year. However, last year’s figure represented a big increase on the previous year. More people are dying as a result of living in a cold house in the United Kingdom than are dying in road traffic accidents each year.

The figure for excess winter deaths is defined by the Office for National Statistics as the difference between the number of deaths during the four winter months and the average number of deaths during the preceding autumn and the following summer. In the Conservative party manifesto for the 2010 election, these figures were described as “a national disgrace”, and that is absolutely the correct description. This is nothing short of a national catastrophe that affects every region of the United Kingdom. The motion before the House therefore calls for the Chancellor to take

“urgent steps to ease the burden on pensioner households”

right across the United Kingdom.

I want to refer particularly to the situation in our own area of Northern Ireland as an example of the dire circumstances facing many of our senior citizens living in cold houses.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I shall certainly support the right hon. Gentleman in the Lobby tonight. Surely, however, the problem is poor pensioner households. The difficulty with the winter fuel allowance is that everybody over 60 or 65 gets it, irrespective of their means, and as a result it has become a generalised payment that helps the rich but does not give enough to the poor.

[Mr Dodds]

I understand that argument entirely. Indeed, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change pointed to it in its report back in 2010, and I will come on to deal with the targeting of resources and tackling fuel poverty. As for cold weather payments, there is clear evidence that many pensioners do not claim all the benefits to which they are entitled. The benefit of having a universal system is that it reaches all those who need it. I will deal with the issue that the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted in more detail later.

[Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)]

In some of the trials aimed at trying to reduce fuel poverty in other parts of the United Kingdom, there has been a conscious drive to improve benefit take-up, and that has made a huge difference to people’s income, far more than the winter fuel payment would make.

[Mr Dodds]

It is a combination of all these factors. The winter fuel payment does play an important role, as the Government and the Minister have acknowledged. The Government made it very clear in the coalition agreement that they would maintain the payment. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that benefit take-up is extremely important, and we should all be doing more to encourage it. Back in Northern Ireland, the Executive have also taken steps to try to encourage benefit take-up. The winter fuel payment plays an important role in tackling this issue.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman support the scheme that was proposed initially by Somerset Community Foundation whereby the winter fuel payment, because it is a universal allowance, could be distributed through community foundations, with the assistance of the Department for Work and Pensions, so that people who are less fortunate and less able to heat their homes could take some or all of the winter fuel payment that is given by those who are a little wealthier ?

[Mr Dodds]

There has been a debate on that very issue over the past few days. I commend those who decide that because they do not need the winter fuel payment themselves, they wish to distribute it to those more in need. I welcome the initiative that the hon. Lady mentions.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Dodds]

Let me press ahead and make a little progress, and I will take more interventions in a short while.

I want to refer to the situation in Northern Ireland. Last winter, we had the coldest December in 100 years. In 2009-10, there were almost 1,000 excess winter deaths, 80% of which were of people aged 65 or over. On average, we get 910 such deaths per year, and that figure compares with 590 in 2001-02, so there has been a massive increase over that period. We have to understand that in addition to the stark figures on mortalities, for every death from cold there are eight hospital admissions and more than 100 visits to general practitioners and health centres. This is suffering on a vast scale.

The recent interim report from the Government’s independent review of fuel poverty, conducted by John Hills, states:

“Living in cold homes has a series of effects on illness and mental health.”

I will not go into all the repercussions of cold weather and of living in cold and damp housing on people’s mental and physical health. The interim report outlines those very clearly.

The winter fuel payment was introduced in January 1998 as a tax-free annual payment. Its purpose was and is to alleviate fuel poverty by giving specific help to encourage older people to spend more on heating during the winter. What is happening this year? For the past three years, the winter fuel payment has been £250 for those aged 60 and over, and £400 for those aged 80 and over. Despite spiralling fuel prices—we had a debate only a couple of weeks ago in this House on the crisis in the energy sector—and despite the extremely cold recent winters and the forecasts of a very cold winter to come, in 2011-12 the payment for pensioners aged 60 and over has been reduced by 20% to £200, and the payment for those aged 80 and over has been cut by a quarter to £300. That does not affect just a small group of people; it affects more than 9 million households and about 13 million people throughout the United Kingdom. Some 12.7 million of those people are in Great Britain and some 317,000 are in Northern Ireland.

As a result of the changes, the expenditure on winter fuel payments will fall from approximately £2.75 billion in 2010-11 to some £2.136 billion in 2011-12. That is a substantial monetary saving for the Treasury, but at what cost? That is the question that many people are asking. People in charities or third sector organisations who deal with older people’s issues are making it clear that they fear that this cut, which directly hits the pockets and incomes of pensioner households throughout the United Kingdom, will result in more illness, more disease and more deaths.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very moving case. I am sure that there is not anybody in this Parliament who is not concerned about excess winter deaths and this nation’s terrible legacy of not tackling fuel poverty among the poorest and most vulnerable. In his analysis for this debate, has he looked at the wide range of other measures that the Government have put in place to tackle the issue this winter and to make more lasting, wholesale changes in winters to come?

[Mr Dodds]

Interventions have an uncanny knack of happening at the precise moment when one is coming on to deal with the very issue that they raise. I will deal with the issue that the hon. Lady has raised. Of course there are other measures aimed at dealing with fuel poverty and coldness-related illness among elderly people. There are the cold weather payments, to which I referred, which some may argue are more specifically targeted. I will come on to that in a moment.

There is also the warm home discount. Recently, the Northern Ireland Assembly unanimously passed an appeal to the Government to think again on this issue, and when the Minister replied he referred to, among other things, the warm home discount scheme. However, the scheme applies only in Great Britain, because the legislation did not apply to Northern Ireland. Half a million pensioners benefit from that scheme in Great Britain, but pensioners in Northern Ireland do not. I am sure that the Minister will address that point.

There are also other measures. On the practical health side, there is the flu vaccination scheme. Northern Ireland has its own warm homes scheme, which I am glad to say was introduced under devolution by a Democratic Unionist party Minister. It has helped 80,000 households and has received widespread support in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland also has a boiler replacement scheme and the social protection fund, which the Executive have brought forward. I understand that discussions are under way to address the specific issue of fuel poverty and the elderly in Northern Ireland. So yes, there are a range of measures, and we need to keep investing in such things as energy efficiency and home insulation to prevent fuel poverty in the long term.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

In a moment.

However, I say to the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) and the House that those other measures do not mean that we can cut the winter fuel payment to such a massive extent. It goes directly to our senior citizens and is an important tool. It is not the only tool—it goes only to senior citizens but, as I have said, they are disproportionately affected—but it is an invaluable tool in helping to tackle fuel poverty among the elderly.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Looking at the standard Library note on the issue, I am interested to see that the standard payment for the winter fuel allowance has been £200 and £300 since 2003, supplemented by one-off extra payments in the past three years, so the standard rate has remained the same. The right hon. Gentleman may also have noticed that in 2006-07 and 2007-08, that one-off payment was withdrawn and the amount paid was the standard payment of £200 and £300. Does he have any data about the increase in deaths in that period and whether there was a real effect of that money being withdrawn?

[Mr Dodds]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about the standard rate, and of course when the Chancellor made his announcement about the winter fuel allowance earlier this year he did not dwell on it in any great detail. In fact, he passed over the issue almost completely, and we found out about it only in the small print. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but it beggars belief that whereas it was thought okay to have the increase in each of the last three years, the Chancellor and the Government have chosen this year to cut the extra payments for our senior citizens, despite the anxiety that was expressed throughout the House just a few weeks ago about extremely high and rising energy prices across the country.

When I raised the matter with the Prime Minister on 2 November, he said:

“we have kept the plans that were set out by the previous Government and I think that is the right thing to do.”—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 918.]

I have listened to the Prime Minister and Ministers speak many times about their spending plans and what the previous Government did, but I do not think I have often heard them say that. On virtually every occasion they have said that the previous Government’s plans were leading to economic disaster, yet on this issue, and only on this issue, they pray in aid the fact that the previous Government were, they say, going to cut the allowance, and that it is therefore the right thing to do. Frankly, that is not good enough. I leave it to the Opposition to outline what their position was.

The Government have decided to maintain health spending at a certain level, saying that it needs to be ring-fenced. They have said that international aid spending needs to be protected, and that we needed to spend money to intervene in Libya. I have no difficulty with any of those things—I support them—but now the Government say that it is right to cut payments to our senior citizens, at a time when they are suffering from extreme cold and high and rising energy prices, because that was what the previous Government had planned. That is a shabby argument, and not one that bears any kind of scrutiny. The Government should stand on their own two feet, argue their case for themselves and justify it to the House and the country.

I want to pay tribute to groups such as Age NI for their work in Northern Ireland, and to Age Sector Platform, which has been very busy in recent months running a significant campaign called Fight the Winter Fuel Cut. Recently, a group from Northern Ireland led by Margaret Galloway, Michael Monaghan and Nixon Armstrong travelled to Westminster and presented the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), with a petition. Hundreds of people are signing that petition every day.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of Northern Ireland, will he reflect on the fact that, for the first time, a commissioner for older people—and a very good one in Claire Keatinge, who was formerly the director of the Alzheimer’s Society—has been appointed? Does he see a role for the commissioner on the issue of winter fuel payments? How could she influence the Government to do the right thing? We hear a lot of criticism of human rights in the House, but there is a guarantee that no one in the UK should experience degrading treatment. For older people, the Government’s policy seems like degrading treatment. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree?

[Mr Dodds]

I certainly do agree with the hon. Lady, who rightly points to the important step taken by the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive of appointing a commissioner for older people, which follows the appointment in Wales of someone who fulfils the same kind of role. I have no doubt that the commissioner, who I agree is an excellent appointment, will be active in putting to Northern Ireland Executive Ministers the case for our older people. As I outlined earlier, a number of things are currently being undertaken by the Executive, and they are considering others, to help our older people. However, what the hon. Lady says on winter fuel payments, which affects the entire country, and which is for decision and debate in this House, should carry some considerable weight.

On whether the allowance is poorly targeted and whether it is the appropriate way in which to deal with fuel poverty—the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) mentioned this—the argument against the universal payment principle overlooks the fact that many of those entitled to, for instance, pension credit, do not receive it, for a variety of reasons. In Northern Ireland, somewhere in the region of £60 million is not claimed by those who are entitled to pension credit. Those people are hit with a double whammy: they do not get pension credit or cold weather payments, because the latter go only to those who claim the former. The only way to ensure that the most vulnerable people get financial help is to keep the universal payment. I believe that there is no dispute between the Government and those who agree with me, because the Conservative party pledged in its manifesto that the allowance would be kept.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a potent argument, but does he share my concern that cold weather payments are triggered by monitoring equipment in only certain parts of the country? My area shares the same climate characteristics as his, and my constituents regularly lose out, which is why the universality of the wider payment is a much better system.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman rightly points to one of the major deficiencies of cold weather payments, which has also been raised by DUP Members.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Another point is that, currently, cold weather payments are not taxed—they go directly to the person and the payments cover everyone. If the money is put through in different ways, it could be taxed and off-takes would come into operation. That would affect not just those 13 million people, because the families of many old-age pensioners supplement their parents' incomes to make sure they are okay.

[Mr Dodds]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that people are 14 times more likely to spend the winter fuel allowance on fuel than they would be if their incomes were increased in other ways. If an allowance is given specifically to spend on fuel, people are more likely to spend it on fuel; they would be less likely spend an allowance on fuel if it was not designated as a fuel poverty measure. There are strong arguments—for reasons that hon. Members and I have outlined—for retaining the universal payment of a winter fuel payment at current levels, and for indexing payments to the rising cost of energy. Some have argued that at a time of pressing demands on the Treasury and given the state of the economy, that would be a luxury we can ill afford. As I have indicated, money has been found for the priorities that the Government have deemed essential: the protection of international aid budgets, taking a penny off fuel duty, ring-fencing NHS budgets and so on. It is vital, however, that we also prioritise saving the lives of our senior citizens in times of very cold weather.

The chief medical officer has said that the annual cost to the NHS of treating winter-related diseases resulting from cold private housing is estimated at about £860 million, but that does not include additional spending by social services, economic loss through days off sick, and so on, which means that the total cost to the NHS and the country as a whole is unknown. However, we do know that every £1 invested in keeping homes warm saves the NHS 42p in health costs, so again this money would be well spent, and it could save the NHS more money in the long term.

Levels of fuel poverty in this country are staggering: in England, 18% of households are in fuel poverty; in Wales, it is 26%; in Scotland, it is 33%; and in Northern Ireland, it is 44%. It is right across the board. That equates to 302,000 households in Northern Ireland alone, 75,000 of which are in extreme fuel poverty, which means that they spend 20% or more of their income on fuel. Furthermore, almost half of all fuel-poor households in the country are headed by over-65s, so clearly fuel poverty disproportionately affects the elderly to a staggering degree.

Yet the situation will only get worse. I have highlighted the rising cost of fuel. In the past five years to October 2011, the retail price of gas in the UK rose by 52%, and the price of oil rose by 86%. In Northern Ireland, the situation is much worse. The price of home heating oil, which is a product that we depend on, has risen by 63% in the past two years and by 150% since 2003. Almost 70% of homes in Northern Ireland depend on it for their primary source of heating—that figure is 82% in rural areas—yet the price of oil has risen beyond anyone’s imagination.

[Mr Weir]

The situation is similar in rural Scotland. I have previously suggested—I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees with this proposal—that the Government make the fuel allowance available earlier in the year to those who rely on home heating oil, when price and demand are lower, allowing them to fill up before the winter hits and the price tends to rocket.

[Mr Dodds]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point about those who depend on home heating oil. These are one-off payments of about £600 for 900 litres of oil—it is a lump-sum payment—so it would be extremely helpful to people to have that money in their hands when they were able to buy more oil at a lower price. He makes an extremely good point.

The picture is stark: we have much higher energy costs; there are considerable pressures on pensioner household incomes owing to lower savings returns; and increases in VAT are hitting everybody hard, but hitting pensioners particularly hard. Furthermore, pensioners tend to be on fixed-retirement incomes, and we know that, according to a recent report, the cost of living has risen by one fifth for older people over the past four years, compared with 14% for the population as a whole.

At the last election, the parties made a number of pledges. On pensioners, the Conservative party described the number of excess winter deaths as a national disgrace, and it said:

“we want to set the record straight. Labour are sending cynical and deceptive leaflets to pensioners’ homes saying we would cut their benefits. This is an outright lie, and here it is in black and white: we will protect pensioners’ benefits and concessions, and this includes: the Pension Credit; the Winter Fuel Allowance; free bus passes; and, free TV licences.”

I defy anybody out there in the public to interpret that statement as anything other than a pledge not only to maintain the existence of the winter fuel allowance, so that it continued to be paid as a benefit, but to maintain it at the same rate at which people were receiving it when the election was called. What other interpretation can we put on those words?

The Liberal Democrats said in their manifesto before the last election that they would reform winter fuel payments, extending them to all severely disabled people, and that this would be paid for by delaying age-related winter fuel payments until people reached 65. However, the Minister, who is in his place, said earlier this month:

“There are no plans to extend provision under the winter fuel payment scheme.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 719W.]

The coalition programme for government stated:

“We will protect key benefits for older people such as the winter fuel allowance,”

and so on. Then there is the argument about the Labour party’s position and what Labour was proposing—or not proposing—to do had it remained in office.

I point to those pledges for this reason. People say today that politicians, Parliament and this House are disconnected from ordinary people. People are losing faith in politics; and is it any wonder, when they read those clear statements and are led to believe one thing, but then, as soon as the election takes place and the same politicians come to office, they turn round and do something entirely different? Their argument in doing so is: “Well, we’re only doing what the previous Government said they would do.” When people can so cynically disregard the pledges that they make on such an important issue, that is another reason for the disconnect between politicians and the public out there.

[Sir Robert Smith]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s argument, but does he think that one reason for the disconnect is perhaps also the previous Government’s mistaken decision to raise the rate to a level that they did not think they could afford to maintain in the long term? That was where the disconnect started.

[Mr Dodds]

I have not heard it said that the level of the payments made over the last three years was unsustainable. I have never heard anybody make that argument.

Let us be fair: the Government have made choices. They have decided, because of the economic situation and the deficit, to cut expenditure in certain areas. In other areas, they have decided to maintain or increase spending. That is the choice of the Government and the majority of the Members of this House; but do not let anyone pretend that the Government had no choice about winter fuel payments or that they had to do what they did. They did not have to do it: they chose to pick this area for cuts and not others. That is a reprehensible choice—a choice that is not justified either economically or morally. At a time of so many excess winter deaths among our older population, it is appalling that cuts should be aimed at that sector of our population.

[George Hollingbery]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Dodds]

I am pressing to a conclusion now. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to catch Mr Speaker’s eye in order to speak, as other Members will want to.

The winter fuel payment should be restored to the amount that was paid over the past three years. Indeed, I would go further and say that future payments should be indexed to reflect rising energy prices. After all, when the winter fuel payment was initially introduced, it paid over half the cost of an older person’s fuel bill, whereas the current level is nowhere near high enough to meet those bills. Our attitude to this issue goes a long way towards illustrating our attitude to the treatment of our older people throughout the country. I hope that the whole House will join me and my right hon. and hon. Friends in supporting the motion this evening, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

Well, obviously, cynicism would be well beyond this Government. The rates of public spending are published through a comprehensive spending review period and for the rest of this period the figure we inherited was £200. That, as I say, was our baseline.

Another strange thing that went on was to do with the cold weather payment. That is the money paid when it is freezing cold to the poorest and most vulnerable people—the poorest pensioners and the poorest disabled people. Temporarily, pre-election, that was increased from the regular £8.50 to £25 a week. Temporarily, too, for the year after the election, as announced before the election, it was to be maintained at £25 a week. You will not be surprised to learn, Mr Speaker, that beyond that, it was planned to be slashed back to the £8.50 a week level. In other words, had we done nothing and taken no action, the winter fuel payment would have reverted to its £200 level and the cold weather payment paid to the most vulnerable when it is most cold would have reverted to £8.50 a week.

Let me remind Members that that was the baseline from which we were trying to find something in the order of £70 billion to £80 billion-worth of savings, so the question was not whether we should cut the winter fuel payment or the cold weather payment, but whether we could find the money to reverse the planned cuts, and thus have to find still further cuts from across the budget.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Belfast North on one point—that Governments have to make choices about priorities. He listed some of the priorities of this Government: ring-fencing the NHS, for example, about which I suspect the pensioners of Northern Ireland will be glad. He also mentioned the penny on petrol duty. I was not aware that it was his policy that we should not have reversed that, but I am happy to be corrected.

[Mr Dodds]

I am sure that the Minister was listening when I said that I supported those priorities. My point was that the Government had decided to increase or maintain spending in certain areas but to target cuts on other areas, and I wanted to know why they had targeted our senior citizens.

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for confirming that the measures that he listed were measures that he supports. I had assumed that, having begun by telling the House that we should spend an extra £600 million on something, he would in the course of his speech identify something on which we should spend £600 million less. Given that he spoke for 30-odd minutes, I may have missed it.

[Mr Dodds]

I could have taken much more time—indeed, I had a page devoted to areas that we could cut—but I considered it to be in the interests of the debate to leave time for others to speak. I am sure that my colleagues will make similar points, but may I begin by suggesting that the Minister reverse his attachment to Europe and save the £400 million that is going to the External Action Service, along with all the other money that is being wasted? And what about the £80 million that he wasted on the alternative vote referendum, which could have gone towards helping older people rather than being wasted on a trivial political exercise?

[Steve Webb]

It is intriguing that, in presenting a 30-minute explanation of why we should spend a further £600 million, the right hon. Gentleman should remove the bit about where the money should come from, which seems to me to be fairly central to the debate.

Faced with that baseline of a proposed reversion to a £200 winter fuel payment and an £8.50 cold weather payment, we could simply have gone ahead with the previous plans, and found our £70 billion to £80 billion on top of that. However, we took the view—as does the right hon. Gentleman—that fuel poverty matters, and we therefore found the money that would enable us to reverse the planned cut in the cold weather payment. I believe that ours was the right priority. If we are concerned about the most vulnerable when it is most cold in the coldest of winters, we should bear in mind that an increase from £8.50 to £25 gives people the confidence to turn up their heating when it is bitterly cold. The system even allows cold weather payments to be triggered by a forecast. It need not actually have been freezing cold; we merely have to expect it to be freezing cold.

Last winter in Northern Ireland, we made 672,000 cold weather payments at a cost of £16.8 million. Had we not reversed the earlier decision, the value of those payments would have fallen by about two thirds. Our decision put about £10 million into the hands of the poorest pensioners and disabled people in Northern Ireland during a bitterly cold winter, and I am proud that we made it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right. In Northern Ireland, dependence on heating oil is substantially greater than it is on the mainland and even in a semi-rural constituency such as my own, oil prices, oil supply and so on are big issues. I am grateful for her kind words about our ministerial colleagues as these are important matters.

Let me go back to the issue of fuel poverty. Clearly, it has a number of components and one is income. We focused on a change from last year’s rate to this year’s of less than £1 a week in the winter fuel payment and that is what we are talking about today. Instead, we have taken the basic state pension, which for 30 years has been declining relative to wages, and put a triple lock on it so that every year from now on, pensioners in Great Britain and Northern Ireland will see their pensions rise by the highest number of inflation measured by the consumer prices index, earnings and 2.5%. We are in a strange period in which inflation is greater than earnings, but in most years, earnings have grown faster. That will mean that as we return to more normal times, pensioners will enjoy above inflation standard of living increases year after year.

The cost of that commitment—I hope that the Chancellor is not listening at this point—will add a total of £45 billion to the amount we spend on pensions by the mid-2020s, which gives a sense of the magnitude of what we have announced. That is rather invisible at the moment, because prices are higher than earnings. When I signed the legislation into law last year, I expected bells to peal and for there to be confetti on the floor and so on. That has not quite happened yet, because people have not seen the impact. In the longer term, it will give a sustained boost to the real incomes of pensioners in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

[Mr Dodds]

The Minister raises the issue of the triple lock. Previously, in the autumn statement the Chancellor has always announced the increase in line with the September rate of inflation, which would mean a 5.2% increase. Does the Minister expect the Chancellor to do the same this year, and would he rebuke the Chancellor if he were to take an annual inflation figure? Given what he has said, I take it that he is very much in favour of the former.

[Steve Webb]

The Chancellor was asked this very question at Treasury questions recently, and he confirmed, as is entirely in line with my view, that the triple lock is something of which we are proud. I am sure that we will be just as proud next Tuesday when he announces his verdict.

This is not just about the basic state pension: it is also about pension credit. As has rightly been pointed out, we need to make sure that pension credit take-up is maximised and we already do many things in that regard. Some people may not know that they can ring an 0800 number—a freephone number—to claim pension credit. They might think there is a long and complicated form to fill out, but in fact they can claim it over the phone and can also claim housing benefit and council tax benefit at the same time. We also undertake a lot of activity to engage with people who might be eligible. For example, we mention pension credit to people when they claim the state pension or when they report a change in their circumstances such as a bereavement. We also have a visiting service so that if people are not online or perhaps are not able to get out, DWP and local authority staff go out to their home and fill in forms with them in their front room.

As a Department, we are doing quite a lot to encourage take-up, but I am aware that the Democratic Unionist party manifesto mentioned trying to pay pension credit automatically. We have been piloting that in Great Britain and I can update the House on that exercise. We took a random sample of about 2,000 customers who were not receiving pension credit but whom we thought, based on what we knew about them, appeared to be entitled to it. For 12 weeks, we paid them the money anyway without their having to make a claim and then we contacted them and said, “By the way, we’ve just given you some free money. This is what we think you would get on pension credit—would you like to make a claim for it?”

The delivery phase of that study ran from November 2010 to March 2011 and an evaluation is now under way, but I can update the House on the early findings from that research. We found that by August, after the process had finished, a percentage of those involved in the study had successfully claimed pension credit. I am going to ask Members to think to themselves what percentage I am about to say, assuming that no one has read what we published. So, of the 2,000 people to whom we gave pension credit because we thought they were entitled to it, what percentage do hon. Members think then successfully claimed it? I shall not do a straw poll at this point. The answer is just 9%, which is a very low figure. Given that 3% of those in the control sample claimed, if we had done nothing we would have had 3% claiming anyway, whereas we had 9%.

We found that those who did go on to claim pension credit did so because the study had raised their awareness of the benefit and their potential eligibility for it, as one might expect. We talked to some of those who did not claim and found that some of them retained the view that they were not entitled to it even though we had contacted them and given them the money. Some felt that they did not need it, which is fair enough, some did not claim because of health issues, others forgot and some did not quite understand what was going on. It was a complex process, and we will publish a rigorous evaluation of it. It would be great if we could spot all the folk who are not taking pension credit and get the money to them automatically, but the early indications are that that will not be the case and that this approach is not a silver bullet that will enable us to deliver the money automatically. However, we will see what lessons we can learn from the pilot and I shall be happy to update the House on that a bit nearer the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

I think the House will draw its own conclusions from the fact that the hon. Lady again failed to take the opportunity to make clear what the Labour party’s policy is on this issue. The coalition Government have made permanent the increase in the cold weather payment from £8.50 to £25. Again, hon. Members on both sides of the House will be pleased to hear that that money is going to the most vulnerable of our constituents. Some 2.7 million pensioner households receiving pension credit also receive the cold weather payment.

The coalition Government are taking real steps to protect pensioners, which is why one of our first actions was to restore the earnings link with the basic state pension. We also gave a triple guarantee that pensions will be increased by the highest of growth in average earnings, price increases or 2.5%. Pension credit is also available for those who have low incomes, and we have continued key support for older people such as free NHS prescriptions, travel concessions and free television licences. For the longer term, we will need to help prevent people from retiring into poverty. Again, our actions are speaking louder than mere words, through the automatic enrolment in workplace pensions.

Hon. Members have made a strong case as to why fuel poverty is a real issue for many vulnerable people, including pensioners living in Northern Ireland. The differences in Northern Ireland are clear, and hon. Members have made that point in this debate. That is why Northern Ireland receives not only the support from pension credits, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments, which are provided for the rest of the UK, but a block grant of some £10.4 billion in funding for the Executive to address the particular priorities of Democratic Unionist party Members and other Northern Ireland Members. That money goes along with some £6 billion to pay for the cost of social security and pensions. We should not forget that Northern Ireland receives almost 25% more in spend per head of population than England, in recognition of the real issues that individuals living in Northern Ireland face.

[Mr Dodds]

The Minister makes a very valid point, but will she also acknowledge that, as we have highlighted in this debate, the people have horrendously higher needs in Northern Ireland, which arise because of ill health, fuel poverty and so on? Our energy prices are also much higher than those in the rest of the United Kingdom, so what she says needs to be put into perspective.

[Maria Miller]

I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making. Indeed, that is why the block grant is so sizeable, and it is important that we recognise that.

Although we clearly want to address these issues here in Westminster, it is important that we work closely with colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive. As the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), mentioned, I was in Belfast only last week meeting the Minister for Social Development to discuss child poverty issues in particular. Addressing fuel poverty is a devolved matter for the Northern Ireland Executive, and they are well placed to determine what measures should be in place to meet local needs. Hon. Members will be aware that earlier this year Northern Ireland launched its own fuel poverty strategy, which set out key areas for improving the situation for local people. I hope that after today’s debate the Executive may consider some of the initiatives in England and Great Britain, particularly the obligation on energy suppliers, which could well be other ways to improve things over the water.

We heard important contributions from right hon. and hon. Members across the House today, but there have been some puzzling absences. Where is the shadow Minister for older people? Where is the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions? We welcome the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, but she is the shadow Financial Secretary—perhaps that is telling in terms of how the Opposition are dealing with this issue.

The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) made a number of important points, and he talked about benefit take-up. I hope that he can bring himself to support the work that my Department is doing, through the introduction of universal credit, to improve the working age take-up of benefits. That is slightly different from the issue we are discussing today relating to pensioners, but it will make an important contribution.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun made a number of important points, and I thank her for that. The very existence of the winter fuel payment does help with people’s mental housekeeping and reassures older people that they can afford to turn up the heating, as she recognised in her contribution. However, I must say to her that tackling fuel poverty in Northern Ireland is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive. We have to make sure that those important devolved matters are dealt with at a local level. As I said, she was not clear about the Labour party’s stance on the winter fuel payment, but perhaps she will clarify it in the closing stages of this debate—or perhaps she will not.

The Minister of State talked about the importance of prioritising those most in need and he highlighted the fact that we have reversed Labour’s cut to the cold weather payments. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) highlighted the fact that we are dealing with a complex set of factors. I have to be careful now, because I think that I have to correct the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea). He said that we were cutting support for the most vulnerable but that is absolutely not the case. We are reversing Labour’s proposed cuts to the cold—

[Mr Dodds]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

We have indeed had some important conversations about the matter. It is not for me to answer for the record of the previous Government, although I point out to the right hon. Lady that 40% of disabled people who left through the 2008 redundancy scheme retired. The figures that she quotes need to reflect that. I can assure her that we will do everything we can to make sure that people affected by any changes in the future are given the support that they need.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Has the Minister had any discussions with the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland about some of the excellent initiatives that it is undertaking, particularly in relation to young people coming out of school and college?

[Maria Miller]

We have many conversations with the devolved Administrations. I cannot recall anything about that subject particularly, but I will pick that up later.