Politics is a matter of life and death.
Take the Labour Government’s decision to means-test winter fuel payments. Over nine million pensioners, including many on just £12,000 a year, will lose help as we head into the cold months. Some will be forced to turn down the heating. Cold homes are linked to higher rates of strokes, heart attacks and respiratory diseases, so this policy could have fatal consequences.
That harm is entirely avoidable. These are not “tough choices” for politicians, but for those forced to choose between heating their homes and eating. Maintaining universal winter fuel payments costs £1.4 billion. Meanwhile, a modest two per cent wealth tax on assets over £10 million could raise £24 billion, more than enough to fund winter fuel payments, scrap the two-child benefit cap and support public sector workers whose wages have stagnated for over a decade.
The false narrative that resources are too limited to support both the elderly and the young pits us against each other. Within a few weeks in office, the new Labour Government has already denied help to all children with more than one sibling, and now to older people too. The Prime Minister talks about growth, but the only thing that is growing so far is avoidable poverty. No child should be born into poverty due to an arbitrary limit on family support, just as no pensioner should freeze because of arbitrary means-testing. There is still time to change course and not go ahead with this.
Meanwhile, the official Opposition wants to help pensioners by taking from public sector workers. Nurses and teachers have struggled with flatlining pay for years, causing crises in our schools and hospitals as people leave for other jobs. Independent pay review bodies have one job: to recommend the pay needed to keep those professions afloat. Now the Tory advice is to ignore these experts and grab more money from workers.
The Conservative Party wants hardworking people to pay for the incompetence of those who think they were born to rule
They have singled out train drivers, hoping to unite us all against a few workers while slashing the pay rises of many others too. Why? They called an early election knowing they would lose because their sums for next year’s spending just didn’t add up. While tech giants and energy firms drown in profits, the Conservative Party wants hardworking people to pay for the incompetence of those who think they were born to rule.
If tomorrow’s vote passes, austerity will officially be a two-party game, a Labour-Tory consensus that needs breaking. Austerity politics divides our communities: older versus younger, working versus retired. It tells people struggling to make ends meet that they should resent each other. It distracts from the real issue: the failure of the sixth-largest economy in the world to tax the super-rich and distribute wealth fairly.
This summer showed the danger of that. When people are abandoned and ignored, the far-Right steps in, exploiting anger and fear. They offer scapegoats instead of solutions, blaming migrants, minorities and the vulnerable for economic problems rooted in political decisions.
By cutting services like winter fuel payments and allowing children to live in poverty, we are not only creating economic hardship but also fostering conditions where hate thrives. As parliamentarians, we must reject the politics of division and austerity. Instead, we need universalism. Universal benefits like winter fuel payments and free school meals for all ensure no-one falls through the cracks. That builds solidarity, reminding us that we all belong to the same society and deserve warmth, food security and dignity.
I will not be abstaining on austerity but voting against tomorrow’s motion to means-test winter fuel payments. We deserve better than Tory austerity versus Labour austerity.
Politics should be a force for good, not division. We can afford a society where we care for each other, where life is cherished and not sacrificed on the altar of austerity.
