Dame Harriett Baldwin asks if the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has seen an impact assessment on how the decision to cut the winter fuel allowance may affect NHS bed capacity during the upcoming winter.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Famously, the House has not seen an impact assessment of the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from frail 85 and 90-year-olds on low incomes. Has Lord Darzi or the Secretary of State seen an assessment of the impact of that decision on NHS bed capacity over the coming winter?
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
The hon. Member is an experienced Member of this House, as both a former Chair of the Treasury Committee and a former Treasury Minister, so she knows how impact assessments are done at the Treasury. She knows that impact assessments of all the Chancellor’s fiscal decisions at the Budget and the spending review will be published at that time. She also knows, I suspect, that despite the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from some pensioners—it will be targeted at those most in need—they will still be better off because the Government have committed to maintaining the triple lock and to extending the warm home discount scheme and the available hardship support, so that pensioners are not left behind as we clean up the £22 billion mess that the Conservatives left behind.