Rebecca Harris

About 20,000 pensioners in Castle Point are set to lose their winter fuel payment under this cruel and vindictive policy that the Labour Government have chosen to adopt. Contrary to the accusations from the Government, I have, with the support of former Work and Pensions Ministers, run campaign after campaign to increase the uptake of pension credit. Only 2,076 pensioners receive it in my constituency, despite campaign after campaign and leafletting groups and churches. It is not easy to get people to take it up—some are proud. I have raised my voice with elderly ladies who have said it is charity, and told them, “No, it’s not. It’s not charity—we don’t think you can live without it.” We have tried very hard. Hundreds of worried constituents have written to me about heating their homes. We have lots of low energy efficiency homes, including one of the biggest park home sites in the country, and I have many park home sites. Fortunately, we managed to find £2.5 million from the previous Government to retrofit some of them, but we still have a lot of people living in fuel-inefficient homes that are hard to retrofit. The worry that this is causing people is the biggest issue I see now, and it shows how out of touch and arrogant the Labour Government are that they do not understand this about pensioners. People who are 75 and on a fixed income may have a little bit of savings or a modest private pension—