Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)

My Lords, this is certainly a shambolic way of conducting a government, but otherwise, I find myself unfortunately rather out of step with the exchanges so far. The winter fuel payment had nothing to do with the level of fuel bills. It was paid to everybody, rich or poor, as a prize for reaching a certain age, which is why, at the last general election that I fought successfully as a candidate, the Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to abolish it. Unfortunately, we never got round to that. The Government failed to make their case, which was exploited very successfully by Nigel Farage, so now they are introducing an extraordinarily generous means test. I quite accept that this should be means tested, but we are now going to pay it out to some of the better off households in this country. Does the Minister not accept that if the Government can somewhere find £1.5 billion to spend on the alleviation of poverty, there are very many more sensible ways of spending it that might help relieve the quite excessive levels of poverty that exist in our society at the moment? Meanwhile, I thank him for the £300 that I shall be receiving in a week or two’s time, although apparently, I shall be giving it back eventually.