Thank you to those constituents who have contacted me about the decision to means test the Winter Fuel Payment which will affect pensioners, apart from those on pension credit.

I want to say that this is not a decision that the new Government wanted to make. Nor is it one we expected to have to make, but when we came into office, we discovered that the previous government had made £22bn worth of spending commitments this year for which they had not identified the funds to pay for them. In other words, they had made spending promises they couldn’t pay for, covered things up and left the new government with the mess to clear up.

We are under no illusions that if no action had been taken to repair the Conservatives’’ black hole’ then it would have damaged financial stability, including the risk of higher debt, higher mortgages and higher costs for the future. This Government was not prepared to let that happen.

I know this is a tough choice, but it was necessary. There will be more tough choices ahead on spending, welfare and tax, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Keir Starmer has spoken about a decade of national renewal because he knows, as the country knows, it will take time to repair the damage the Conservatives did to our economy.

I would point out, however, that the Government is committed to, and will protect, the triple lock on pensions, which saw the new state pension rise by £900 in April this year. A further increase in the state pension will be announced at the Budget in October, but on the basis of figures released recently, pensioners may get well over £400 more next year.

Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving pension credit or certain other income-related benefits. I realise that some of you who have written to me will not be eligible, but we are urging pensioners who are to apply for pension credit so we can increase the uptake. To help, we have launched a new drive to get eligible pensioners to claim because we know that up to 880,000 pensioners are not claiming the pension credit to which they are rightly entitled.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has written to 120,000 pensioner households who are in receipt of housing benefit but who are not yet claiming the pension credit that they are likely to be eligible for. The DWP has received around 38,000 pension credit claims in the five weeks since the announcement on 29 July, which is more than double the number in the previous five weeks, and we will continue to do all we can to encourage pensioners who are eligible to apply.

In addition, the warm home discount of £150 will help low-income pension households this year. This is critically important, because it is not just for the lowest-income pensioners on pension credit but also for pensioners on low incomes who have high energy costs. It will be open for applications in October. We have also taken the decision to extend the Household Support Fund for the next six months because it is a lifeline for people who are struggling with the cost of living. This is administered locally by Leeds City Council.

I realise that you will probably continue to be opposed to the decision we have had to take, but I hope I have at least set out the reasons why we did.

Rt Hon Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland