Sir Roger Gale

My wife, Suzy, is over retirement age. She is also in full-time employment. I am over retirement age. I am also in full-time employment and a higher rate taxpayer. I have always believed that the winter fuel allowance should be means-tested, because while we give it to charity, there are other, perhaps younger people—such as the young and disabled, who cannot run around and keep warm—who could use the money. I have believed that for probably as long as the now Chancellor of the Exchequer has believed it. Let us be clear: this has nothing to do with black holes in the economy, which Laura Kuenssberg identified while interviewing the Prime Minister on Sunday as being largely contributed to by inflationary pay increases for the unions—for railway workers and junior doctors. This is a policy dreamed up in 2014 by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer—that is on the record. It is a policy made in No. 11 Downing Street and endorsed by the nation’s undertaker in No. 10. It is cruel, it is heartless, and it is going to lead to deaths this winter, so while I believe that there should be a means test, the manner in which the Government are going about it is profoundly wrong and deeply flawed and will cause untold-of hardship. It has got to change.