Jim Shannon

I rise to publicly oppose this proposed change. I understand the need to balance the books—we all do, and we know how it works—but to be perfectly frank, and it gives me no joy to say this, I never imagined ever in my life that a Labour Government would seek to balance the books on the backs of pensioners throughout the United Kingdom. I put that on record at the beginning. I say it respectfully, but with great grief. I fully comprehend that the system could do with an upgrade. Perhaps we should look at a household cap, as we have with the child benefit payment. Perhaps we could look at allocating per household, rather than per person. Perhaps we could look at ensuring that everyone who is still earning more than their pension through employment can have deferred payments until full retirement. Perhaps we could look at an opt-out scheme for pensioners such as me. I do not need the money; I asked not to take the money. I give the money to charity. I am not better than anybody else—never am I better than anybody else—but I realised that I did not need that money, so I gave it away. Others might want to do the same thing. It should be direct face-to-face applications for pension credit. There should not be a nine-week wait for the application to be processed. My goodness, people need the money now. The threshold should be raised. The Government and the Minister have said about the £440 that is coming next spring, but pensioners need the money this winter and as soon as possible. In Northern Ireland, 68% of homes rely on oil-fired boilers for heating. There are high levels of fuel poverty, with 22% of the population currently spending more than 10% of their household income on heating their homes. I think about the women who have a tiny workplace pension from the hours they worked while their children were in school. The women of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign have already been disadvantaged and will pay a further price for not being allowed to save for their needs. I am begging this Government on behalf of my constituents in Strangford not to remove the benefit from everyone in one fell swoop.