My Lords, I grew up in Barnsley in Yorkshire, which is a Labour stronghold, and I find it inconceivable, even as I look at this instrument, that the Labour Government are taking away the winter fuel payment from 880,000-plus very poor people, who will go very cold and hungry this winter as a consequence.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for her clear explanation of the access available to the shadow Chancellor prior to the election. What she told us was important; I did not know it.
There are disabled pensioners who may not be in receipt of pension credit but who, as a consequence of this, will have grave difficulty keeping their houses as warm as they need to keep them. They cannot go and sit in the malls, shops and cafes, as so many other pensioners do, to keep warm. We should bear them in mind, and we should not be doing this.
Noble Lords have already indicated ways in which a similar saving could be achieved, through taxation processes or windfall taxes, et cetera. Noble Lords should reflect on whether they could keep themselves warm on £218 a week, and eat. The Labour Government should think again about what they are doing.
Finally, the conventions of this House are simply that: conventions. There are particular and extreme circumstances in which we should disregard our conventions for the benefit of those who have no voice. Pensioners will lose a benefit they so desperately need, and this is the one thing people have repeatedly stopped me on the street about since the Labour Government made this announcement. This is an occasion on which we should ignore convention and vote with these Motions.