Helen Whately

I will in a moment—I was hoping the Minister might have answers, but he does not. To this day, the Government have not published a full impact assessment setting out the truth about their policies. Is that because they do not know themselves, or because they do not want to admit the harm that they were willing to do? Thanks to the effort of colleagues and the public, we have, however, been able to glean some information in the months since. The Secretary of State admitted to the Work and Pensions Committee that she had seen internal modelling showing that 100,000 pensioners would be pushed into poverty because of their political choices. Thanks to a freedom of information request, the Government were forced to publish their equality analysis, showing that 71% of people with a disability would lose their winter fuel payment, while official NHS data shows that the number of over-65s attending A&E this winter soared by nearly 100,000 compared with last year, despite this being a less cold year. And now, as I have said, it feels as if spring is here. It is time for the Government to be honest with the public and tell us what this policy has done in practice. I hope they will not tell us that they did not monitor the results, because that surely is not credible. It is time to tell us how many eligible pensioners did not receive the winter fuel payment this year; time to tell us how the cuts have hit pensioner poverty; and time to tell us what those cuts did to hospital admissions. Ministers need to know this information so that they can prepare responsibly for next year. Back Benchers need to know this information so that they can represent their constituents effectively. And the public deserve to know the consequence of the actions of the Government they elected.