Chancellor Rachel Reeves addresses Sunderland pensioners angry over loss of winter fuel payments

Sunderland Echo

Rachel Reeves has been explaining the "difficult decision" to limit receipt of winter fuel payments to only the poorest pensioners.

Transcript

00:00Following the budget back in October obviously we got some reaction from local people here

00:05in Sunderland. One of the things which was a common issue was obviously about the reduction

00:11of the winter fuel support which people get and I know the benchmark was set at people

00:16on pension credit. I think we all agree that if you've got hundreds of thousands of pounds

00:19in the bank you shouldn't be getting support with your energy bills. What was the sort

00:23of rationale behind the benchmark being pension credit because obviously you've got people

00:27maybe just above that level who may well need that money and it could still be a struggle

00:32for them. I inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances when I became

00:37Chancellor. This was overspending by the previous government that they did not reveal to the

00:43public during the election campaign, didn't tell Parliament about, didn't even tell the

00:48independent government forecasters of public finances and so I've had to make a number

00:53of difficult decisions since becoming Chancellor to get the public finances back in order but

00:58the reason I've done that is because when a government loses control of the public finances

01:02you see inflation and interest rates and mortgage rates go through the roof and that's disastrous

01:07for families and for businesses and for pensioners too and we saw the impact of that when Liz

01:13Trust and the Conservatives lost control of the public finances. So we've had to make

01:17a number of difficult decisions including restricting winter fuel payments to only those

01:23pensioners. A million pensioners, a little bit more than a million, will still get winter

01:29fuel payment because they're on the pension credit and also since we launched a campaign

01:35on pension credit the number of people applying for it has gone up by more than 150% so we're

01:41trying to do everything we can to make sure that people who are entitled to the support

01:45are getting it. In addition to that our commitment to the triple lock means that everybody of

01:53pension age will see their pension go up next year by £470 and that's in addition to the £850

02:02increase in the new state pension this year so pensioners are getting increases in the pension

02:08that are above the cost of living and through our commitment to the pension credit the poorest

02:15pensioners will continue to receive winter fuel payment. It was a difficult decision but we had

02:21to take difficult decisions to get our public finances back in order. I think the other thing

02:25that the Chancellor was able to do with the budget was also extend the household support fund so

02:29that's been £2.6 million coming to Sunderland and Sunderland City Council have decided to use

02:34that. I think it's going to help 5,000 pensioners across Sunderland so actually it includes those

02:38people who are slightly just above that pension credit threshold as well which is a great decision.

02:45Again in terms of feedback from the budget we did get a number of local smaller businesses get in

02:49touch who were concerned about the increase in national insurance. I know it was done to put

02:54the burden on the employer not necessarily the employee but you know some people have said you

02:59know it could lead to possibly having to make job redundancies or it could impact other employees

03:03pay increases across the course of the next few years so what would your response be to them?

03:08Well we did increase employers national insurance in the budget and that money will go towards

03:14both addressing the public finance challenges but also we put £25 billion into the National

03:19Health Service at the budget and that's essential if we're going to bring down hospital waiting

03:24lists and hospital waiting times that have got totally out of control. Now just say to small

03:30businesses in Sunderland that I would urge them to look at the employment allowance because we've

03:36more than doubled the size of the employment allowance which is the threshold before you

03:40start paying national insurance and that means if you're a small business that is for example

03:45paying four people full-time at the national living wage from next April you won't pay any

03:51national insurance whatsoever there are a million small businesses who will be either paying less

03:57no or the same national insurance as they're paying currently because of that support that

04:02we put in at the budget specifically to help smaller businesses who I know will struggle

04:07more than others to pay higher levels of national insurance.

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