MPs are set to vote on the proposal to scrap the winter fuel allowance today
The Government’s proposed cut to winter fuel payments for pensioners is “the wrong cut in the wrong place”, according to Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan.
She told GB News: “There are so many pensioners who aren't very well off, who are earning less than half the minimum wage, who are going to be very badly affected by this cut, especially given that energy prices are going up by 10% for this winter.
“We've seen some polling done that tells us that one in five are thinking about cutting back on eating and more than half so that they're going to consider cutting back to try and make ends meet this winter. So we think it's the wrong cut in the wrong place.
“We accept that the Conservatives have left the country's finances in a real mess, and that there are hard choices to be made, but we'd rather see a different choice to be made on where to get this money back from.
“It doesn't make sense. I think it is a big mistake by the Labour Party, because they have committed to look after pensioners in their manifesto.
“We know that while some pensioners are very well off, pensioner poverty is a huge issue still. Age UK says there are about 800,000 pensioners who are eligible for pension credit and who haven't claimed it, another 2 million whose income is less than the national minimum wage.
“There are some really, really vulnerable people out here and I think it's a huge mistake to cut their benefit when there were alternatives that could have been considered, for example, reversing the cuts to the banking taxes that the Conservatives made while in government.”
Asked about increases in taxes proposed by the Lib Dems, she said: “The tax raises that we put in our manifesto, I think, were very much targeted to land on the broader shoulders and not to affect pensioners and working people.
“The tax changes that we proposed, for example, would have affected the top 0.4% of people paying Capital Gains Tax and wouldn't have affected everybody else. We’d have reversed, as I say, the cuts that the Conservatives made to banking taxes.
“There are some difficult decisions that need to be made. No one wants to increase the tax burden that's going to be necessary in this instance, but there are places you can do that without affecting hard working people and vulnerable pensioners.”
She said the Lib Dems are the current party of opposition in the Commons: “I think we're doing a good job of holding this Government to account.
“If you look at the Commons benches, there's a lot of Lib Dems there trying to get in there to challenge ministers, and the Conservative benches seem pretty empty to me, especially if you consider that there are more of them than us.
“We're doing a very good job while the Conservatives are very much focused on their own internal drama.”
