A ministerial watchdog should investigate concerns over the Government’s handling of the winter fuel payment cuts, the Conservatives have said.
Chris Philp suggested the Government did not publish figures showing the impact of the policy ahead of a Commons vote as it wanted to “disguise” from Labour backbenchers the number of disabled pensioners who will lose the benefit.
The shadow Commons leader said he believed this amounted to a breach of the Ministerial Code, which says ministers should be “as open as possible” with Parliament and the public and that any refusal to provide information should be when “disclosure would not be in the public interest”.
Mr Philp asked Commons Leader Lucy Powell to request an investigation from the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, adding he would do so if she did not.
Ms Powell defended the Government’s response and said her Tory counterpart was “reaching desperately for a conspiracy when there just isn’t one”.
From this winter, only people on pension credit or certain other benefits will receive the winter fuel payments, worth up to £300, while about 10 million others are set to be stripped of the allowance.
The Government has insisted the move is necessary to help fill a “£22 billion black hole” in the public finances inherited from the Tory government.
Downing Street last month said a full impact assessment of the change, coming into effect this year, has not been carried out.
The Department for Work and Pensions later released figures, published in response to a freedom of information request, based on “equality analyses” which “are not impact assessments and not routinely published alongside secondary legislation”.
They showed more than 80% of people aged 80 and over will lose out, as will more than 70% of pensioners.
Speaking at business questions, Mr Philp told the Commons: “Members across the House are horrified by the Government’s callous plan to strip the winter fuel payments from most pensioners, including 84% of those in poverty.
“Now the Government refused to provide the equalities impact assessment in response to a written parliamentary question from one of my colleagues.
“But just a few days after the vote they then slipped out that assessment via a freedom of information request.
“That denied Members of Parliament the chance to see that impact assessment before voting, presumably because the Government wanted to disguise from their own backbenchers the fact that over 70% of disabled pensioners will lose their winter fuel payments.
“The failure to disclose key information to this House appears to me to be a breach of section 1.3 (d) of the Ministerial Code. So, firstly, will the Leader apologise to the House for hiding that information before the critical vote?
“And will she ask the independent adviser to investigate this as a potential breach of the Ministerial Code, and if she won’t then I will.”
Ms Powell replied: “I know he wrote to me about this issue because the Sunday Telegraph journalist told me he wrote to me before I actually received his letter. I know he likes to come to Parliament about these things first.
“He’s reaching desperately for a conspiracy when there just isn’t one. We granted a vote on the winter fuel payment because we respect Parliament, his party didn’t.
“We published the equality analysis even though there was no requirement to do so. His party wouldn’t have done the same.
“And we’ve had to take the very difficult decision we didn’t want to make to fill the £22 billion black hole his party left behind.
“He doesn’t want to hear it but it’s the truth.”
Asking Labour at Business Questions if they are ashamed that their Prime Minister has been accepting more freebies than any other MP while stripping pensioners of their winter fuel allowance pic.twitter.com/ANIeNjdqpH
— Chris Philp MP (@CPhilpOfficial) October 10, 2024
Mr Philp also claimed the public are “horrified” at Sir Keir Starmer’s “insatiable and venal appetite for freebies”.
He asked if Ms Powell was “ashamed” of the Prime Minister doing this “at the same time as stripping pensioners of their winter fuel allowance”.
Mr Philp said: “Not a Government of service, a Government of self-service, feathering its nest courtesy of (Labour donor) Lord Alli’s extremely capacious credit card.”
Ms Powell, in her reply, said: “The brass neck really of raising standards in Parliament.”
She highlighted concerns over the conduct of previous Tory administrations, adding: “Let’s not get into the fast lane mates’ rates Covid contracts costing taxpayers’ millions of pounds or in fact that his government changed the rules on socialising while at the same time partying in Downing Street and lying to this House about it for months on end.
“We will take no lectures from the party opposite.”
Ms Powell also received birthday wishes from MPs as the business questions session took place on the same day she turned 50.
