DWP Winter Fuel Payment: Calls for regulator investigation

The Conservatives say a ministerial watchdog should investigate the change to the DWP payment for pensioners.

From this winter only people with pension credits or certain other benefits will receive the winter fuel payments worth up to £300, while around 10 million others will have their allowance withdrawn.

Chris Philp, shadow leader of the House of Commons, suggested the government had not published figures showing the impact of the policy ahead of a Commons vote because it wanted to “hide” from Labor backbenchers how many disabled pensioners theirs would lose benefits.

Mr Philp asked Commons leader Lucy Powell to ask the independent adviser to investigate ministers’ interests, adding that he would do so if she did not.

Ms Powell defended the government’s response, saying her Conservative counterpart was “desperately reaching for a conspiracy when there simply isn’t one”.

The government has insisted the move is necessary to close a “£22 billion black hole” in the public finances inherited from the Tory government.

Downing Street said last month that a full impact assessment of the change coming into force this year had not been carried out.

The Department for Work and Pensions later released figures, released in response to a freedom of information request, which are based on “equality analyses” which are “not impact assessments and are not routinely published alongside secondary legislation”.

They showed that more than 80% of people aged 80 and over and more than 70% of pensioners will be losers.

On economic issues, Mr Philp told the Commons: “Members across the House are appalled by the government’s callous plan to deprive most pensioners, including 84% of people living in poverty, of winter fuel payments.”

“In response to a written parliamentary question from one of my colleagues, the government has now refused to provide the equality impact assessment.

“But just days after the vote, they then highlighted that assessment through a freedom of information request.

“This denied MPs the opportunity to see this impact assessment before the vote, presumably because the government wanted to hide from its own backbenchers the fact that over 70% of disabled pensioners will lose their fuel payments in the winter.”

“Failure to pass on important information to this House appears to me to be a breach of section 1.3(d) of the Ministerial Act. So will the leader first apologize to the House of Representatives for concealing this information before the crucial vote?

“And will she ask the independent adviser to investigate this as a possible breach of the ministerial code and if she doesn’t I will.”

Ms Powell replied: “I know he has written to me on this issue because the Sunday Telegraph journalist told me he wrote to me before I actually received his letter. I know he likes to come to Parliament first about these things.

“He’s desperate for a conspiracy when there simply isn’t one. We voted on the winter fuel payment because we respect Parliament, but his party does not.

“We published the equality analysis even though there was no obligation to do so. His party would not have done the same.

“And we had to make the very difficult decision that we didn’t want to make to fill the £22 billion black hole that his party left behind.

“He doesn’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth.”