My Lords, there seems to be rather a hurry to embrace economic rationality on the part of the new Government. We know what economic rationality always says: cutting income tax for the rich is good policy because that encourages growth, and cutting the benefits of the poor is good policy because that balances the budget. All through economics—the science that I teach—there has always been this root. The poor must be made to suffer because, as Malthus pointed out, if you give them more money, they will only breed more children. That is no good. Giving money to the poor is a loss, but give money to the rich and the rich will benefit.
I imagine that there is an idea that a big hole in the fiscal accounts was suddenly discovered. I do not think so: I think we all knew there was a fiscal hole. We have all been through the pandemic and through the last 15 years, when the economy has had a very low growth rate—in fact, practically no growth rate. We know all that. We also know the public accounts numbers that were available giving us the ratio of deficit to GDP. None of this was a surprise. If you want to really tackle the deficit, you need a 10-year horizon to do it. Do it rationally; do not do it quickly, do not do it in a haphazard fashion and do not just immediately say, “Oh, I have to make a very tough decision”. As soon as a politician says “tough decision”, you know the poor are going to suffer.
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It is a tough decision not to allow the people on universal credit to have more than two children. Why? Why have the Government already decided to continue with the two siblings decision? They have done so already. Why have the Government already decided to punish old-age pensioners? The one thing that Gordon Brown did, way back in 1997 when he introduced this winter fuel payment system, was to introduce a rare universal benefit for all elderly people. It is a very rare thing to be able to do that and to be able to afford it—and for all these years we have afforded it. All these years, we have afforded it and, if anything, we may not be as rich as we would like to be, but we are not poorer than we were in 1997.
The Government need to really explain this to people properly. Do not say all this about tough decisions—all decisions are tough. We have to be absolutely clear exactly why the cut-off point was chosen in the way that it was and, as previous speakers have said, let us find out who we have left out. Who are the most vulnerable people we have left out after this decision? Let us get to work very quickly to compensate those people and tell them that they will be protected this winter. It is already September and we have to do something quickly before it gets worse.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 49 years and, I must say, when I was there, I never, ever thought that a Labour Government, within a month of their arrival, would take things away from the poor and leave them cold for the whole winter. Whatever fiscal challenges there are, this is not the way to get your fiscal problems solved—by leaving lots of old people shivering in the cold and perhaps dying. That is not good. Think again, please.