Winter Heating Costs: Assistance (Hansard, 24 March 1986)

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Baroness Trumpington)
My Lords, the main help with heating costs is through the supplementary benefit scale rates and weekly heating additions. Most householders in receipt of supplementary pensions who are over the age of 65 are entitled to a basic weekly heating addition, or a higher rate addition if they are over 85 or severely disabled. In addition, supplementary benefit claimants may, subject to the normal rules governing single payments, be eligible for a single payment to cover extra fuel costs arising from the recent exceptionally severe weather.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Baroness. May I put a case to her so that she can give me an answer? I have been approached by an elderly lady of 83 who has just received her gas bill from Segas for this dreadful winter we have gone through. If I may quote from it, she has consumed gas to the amount of £142.10, with a standing charge of £9.90. Her husband died 10 years ago and left her with about £700. She is unable to claim supplementary benefit. Will the noble Baroness be good enough to tell me what I am supposed to say to her? She is in great distress and does not know what to do.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, we are very concerned about old people. Not all claimants automatically qualify for this help when a period of 1153 exceptionally severe weather has been declared. For example, those who pay a fixed heating charge with their rent and those who have sufficient savings in excess of £500 to pay for the extra fuel used do not qualify. Other claimants may find that their quarterly bill, which may have covered a mild spell as well as a very cold spell, is no higher than they had budgeted for. The system last year worked on the basis of the weather over the whole period of the bill and not just over the severe spell. With regard to the bill for £9 odd, that is a matter for British Gas.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, I apologise to the House for coming in again so quickly. With respect to the noble Baroness, that is not good enough. I cannot repeat to an old lady of 83 who has only the income I have described the jargon I have just heard. She went to the DHSS and was told that she had more capital than was required: that is, more than £500. Also, is it not an absolute impertinence on the part of Segas or anybody else to throw a standing charge of £9.90 at old people like that, with no question of a rebate or other consideration? What in heaven's name am I supposed to say to her?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I have already answered the point about having more than £500 in savings, and I have suggested that the noble Lord should contact British Gas about the bill.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that it is very grim to have to say in this House that during the winter hundreds of our older citizens have died from hypothermia and there does not seem to be much evidence that the Government are doing a great deal about it? Does the noble Baroness agree that one cause of these deaths has been the type of heating some of these old people have, and particularly those who live alone, because it is totally insufficient? Would it not be an idea for local authorities to know when old people are living alone so that during such extremely inclement weather they can he visited? Should not that be compulsory on their social services?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I think that good neighbours can do a great deal to help. We are very concerned about hypothermia and are investigating the increase in references to it on death certificates last year. In the meantime, we have done much to help those most at risk by the extra money which has been put into heating additions. We now spend £140 million more in real terms on heating additions than in 1979, when the Government took office.

§ Baroness Faithfull
My Lords, will the Minister agree that in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mellish, the social services department should be asked to call on the old lady and consult with her on how best she can be helped either through social services or through supplementary benefit? I have dealt with many such cases.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Faithfull.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, does the Minister not accept that this arithmetical competition in compassion keeps nobody warm and is most offensive to many old people and to many Members on both sides of this House? Can the Minister try to take this question a little further? Why not, for instance, add heating allowances automatically for people on supplementary benefit in the winter? Why do we have to have this argument about how cold the cold weather is? We all know that heating costs more in the winter than in the summer. I should have thought there would have been a great saving in administration if there was an automatic increase in heating allowances in the winter rather than to have a flat sum all the year round.
Secondly, may I ask the noble Baroness whether she will consult her friends in the Government, particularly in this energy year, about getting more repairs and insulation work done so that we are not wasting so much money trying to keep warm? Will she also consult with them about lowering the costs of gas and electricity, which are being kept by this Government artificially high, especially as the price of oil is going down?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, with regard to the latter part of the noble Baroness's supplementary question, I can do no better than quote my honourable friend the Minister of State for Social Security when he said during a recent interview: If we are going to change to a single payment as we have suggested we would in 1988, we shall need to make sure that there is some effective alternative to ensure the future of these schemes, but that is what we are determined to do".

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, my noble friend who asked the original Question asked the noble Baroness what he should tell his old constituent. She has not answered him. Should he tell his old constituent that her lamentable condition is her fault or the Government's? It is one or the other.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, I have stated the case. My noble friend Lady Faithfull has made a most helpful suggestion. Following that, I am unable to suggest to any noble Lord what he should tell a friend of his in a private conversation.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, were there not incomprehensible difficulties between the payments made in one part of the country and those in another in the recent cold spell? How will the local authorities' social services departments be able to explain to an old person that she is not receiving additional heating allowance when somebody in the neighbouring borough is? Will the noble Baroness and the Government seriously consider whether the additional heating allowance should be made universal to all old people during spells of cold weather such as were experienced in February?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, the system which operated last year and which was based on data collected from weather stations was declared invalid by the social security commissioners. The chief adjudication officer has subsequently issued revised guidance. It is a regulated system, and Ministers cannot intervene in individual decisions.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us why it took so long in most areas to declare a period of exceptional weather when, during February, the whole country was in the grip of the coldest month for many, many years?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, this is a matter for the adjudication officers in DHSS local offices.

§ Lord Ennals
My Lords, can the noble Baroness say just what ministerial discretion there is? Is she aware that there were hospitals up and down the country that had to declare a red alert? They were unable to take in any other patients because of the patients who were admitted suffering from hypothermia or low blood temperature. She referred to exceptionally severe weather. Is there not some discretion by which the Minister can determine that these are exceptional circumstances, requiring exceptional action to save exceptional people, rather than the decision being taken after the crisis is over?

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, the Government believe that the proposed system of premium payments which gives extra help to pensioners, the sick and the disabled, in particular, is the most effective means of getting help to those most in need.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, I apologise to the House for intervening again. May I clear up an anomaly? I am obliged to the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, who intervened. The DHSS has called and the people were kind and decent, but the fact is that the old lady does have over £500. She has actually about £800 which her husband left her when he died and which she has carefully conserved. She has no income other than the old-age pension. The DHSS said with the deepest regret that there was nothing that it could do. I am simply saying that I do not know where to go from here. She will pay the bill out of the £500, or whatever it is, that she has left. All I am saying is that the DHSS people have already been.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, the main help with heating is in the weekly scale rates. They have increased by more than 6 per cent. in real terms since 1978. We have also increased both the availability and value of heating additions. They are now worth £140 million more in real terms than in 1979. In particular, we have extended automatic entitlement to heating additions to those who are most likely to need extra warmth—the elderly, the chronically sick and disabled and families with young children. I am afraid that I have no more to offer them.

§ Baroness Jeger
My Lords, I apologise for coming back again, but I do not think that the noble Baroness has explained to the House why the heating allowance is the same in a hot summer as it is in a cold winter.

§ Baroness Trumpington
My Lords, because the heating allowance is covered by the weekly figures that people receive, and savings should be made over the whole year to cover the cold periods.