Dave Doogan

Some 19,500 pensioners in Angus and Perthshire Glens will be stripped of their winter fuel payment by this Labour Government. I cannot tell the House how cold it gets in Angus and Perthshire Glens in wintertime, but if anyone on the Labour Front Bench wants to come and sit in my garage on a January day, I will turn the heating off in the whole property and they can see what it will be like for some pensioners in my constituency. I will not be supporting this measure because it is incompetent. It is incompetent operationally, because it does not take cognisance of co-morbidities in already frail people, or of what will happen to those people as they budget to try to accommodate this unnecessary cut to their income. It is fiscally incompetent, because it does not take cognisance of whole-system costs—people presenting at hospital or going into care prematurely because they cannot stay at home, because of what they do to try to make ends meet. It does not take account of the cost to the supposed saving of £1.5 billion once pension credit is taken up fully, rendering the saving meaningless. It is morally incompetent because, as we have heard from professionals in the Chamber, as a result of this decision, people will die. Moreover, this measure was not in the Labour party manifesto, which is reprehensible, and it ignores the cultural sensitivities of older people, many of whom find asking for help anathema; they will never do it, no matter how entitled they are. I very much hope that when the Minister sums up the debate, she will estimate how many of the 209 extra Labour MPs in this House, including 37 in Scotland, would be here if cutting the winter fuel payment had been on the face of their manifesto. It would be very many fewer.