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Mr. Charles Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman is an historian.
Mr. McAllion: I am not an historian; I am an optimist. We may again see a socialist Government like the one that was in power from 1945 to 1951, although I suspect that that may be some way off.
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I shall discuss some of the key characteristics of the current cold weather scheme organised by the Government, and start by discussing who qualifies for payments.
When the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross introduced the debate, she gave us a list of the people who qualify under the present scheme, describing them as perhaps the most vulnerable people in society--those in receipt of income support and income-related jobseeker's allowance, people who receive a pensioner's premium or a disability premium and people with children under five. Those are important groups, but they are not the only vulnerable groups in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Many vulnerable groups are currently excluded from cold weather payments.
The right hon. Member for Dumfries referred to the figures for last year. I have looked up the figures. If we study those for 1990-91 to the present day, including those given by the Under-Secretary of State yesterday during Question Time, we find that about 20 million cold weather payments have been made in the past six and a half years--an average of about 3 million a year. Some of those will have been repeat payments so, each winter, fewer than 3 million people in Scotland receive cold weather payments--but every poverty group will tell us that more than 10 million people are living in poverty. The vast majority never qualify under the cold weather payments scheme devised by the present Government.
Statistics published by Ministers tell the same story. Every year, they publish a document called "Households Below Average Income," which examines the income of all groups in society. It says that, between 1979--the year, unfortunately, the Conservatives came to power--and 1993-94, the last year for which figures are available, those in full-time work or self-employment declined as a percentage of the population. They decreased from 71 per cent. of the population in 1979 to only 59 per cent. in 1993-94. The figure is probably lower today.
Meanwhile, the unemployed--or, as the Government describe them, "others not in work"--increased from 8 per cent. of the population in 1979 to 17 per cent. in 1993-94. The unemployed are now the fastest-growing section of the population. Some of them, of course, receive a disability premium, and some have children under five, but many do not have such qualifications and are not eligible for the Government's cold weather payments.
The unemployed are the only group in society whose incomes, after taking housing costs into consideration, were lower in 1993-94 than they were in 1979. The poorest and most vulnerable section of the population is excluded from the cold weather payments scheme. The Minister should reflect on that. The scheme is not comprehensive, does not cover enough poor people and leaves far too many of them at risk of having their power supply cut off.
The right hon. Member for Dumfries claimed that the scheme was generous. He mentioned the year 1995-96, when £62 million was paid out under it. He did not mention the previous year, when only £77,000 was paid out, or the year before that, when the figure was £12.4 million. The scheme is nowhere near as generous as Ministers pretend. They tend to pick the year when most payments were made and give the impression that
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About £164 million has been paid out by the Government over a period of six and a half years, which works out at £20 million a year on average. I know that the sum of £20 million cannot be dismissed--it is a great deal of public money--but we should compare it with some of the public spending priorities that the Government have announced recently.
The Government spend just under £70 million on cadet forces. We understand that that sum is about to be doubled--another £70 million a year is to be allocated to make kids go to school and learn how to shoot rifles. That has suddenly become a bigger priority than looking after people who are vulnerable to the cold. A sum of £60 million is to be spent on a royal yacht. A luxury yacht for the monarchy is a greater priority for the Government than looking after the poor, the old and the frail who are suffering all round the country.
The Child Poverty Action Group has pointed out that, since 1979, £31.8 billion has been given away in tax cuts to the better-off, and almost one third of that sum--more than £10 billion--has been handed across to the top 1 per cent. of earners in the United Kingdom. I cannot believe that any Government can justify handing £10 billion over to the richest in society while claiming that they cannot afford to keep the poor warm in their own homes. That makes no sense.
The Government's own family expenditure survey has shown that the fuel bills of the rich are falling, while the fuel bills of the poorest are rising faster than those of any other section of the population. The bottom 10 per cent. in terms of national income spend 10 per cent. of their total income on trying to keep their homes warm. It is very different for the rich.
The point about the state of the housing stock in Scotland was well made by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross. That is why it is a tragedy that the Minister responsible for housing in Scotland could not be bothered to be present and take part in the debate. Housing is central to whether people can keep warm in winter.
We know from the national house condition survey, which the Government commissioned and published, that the state of Scotland's housing stock is a disgrace. There is dampness and mould growth in more than half a million homes. As a result, asthma among children is on the increase, and there are excess winter deaths every year. What a terrible phrase that is. There were 7,000 excess winter deaths in Scotland, according to Shelter: 7,000 people who died not from natural causes, but because it was cold and they could not afford to keep themselves warm.
Since that meeting, the Government have announced a 28 per cent. cut in housing investment in Scotland. There is a 75 per cent. rule which states that, of the receipts gathered by the local authorities across Scotland--about £227 million in the past year--75 per cent. must be diverted to reducing local authority debt, and taken away from investment in housing.
In other words, £170 million has been withdrawn from investment in new heating systems and double glazing to keep people warm in their homes. Shelter reckons that, if spent through the public sector, £170 million would make more than 72,000 homes in Scotland warm, dry places where people could survive, rather than places where they are likely to die.
I realise that there are other options. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross put forward on behalf of her party an alternative that should be debated seriously by all parties. I accept the comment of the right hon. Member for Dumfries that, if we speak about improving the scheme, we must specify where the money is to come from.
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye):
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross (Ms Cunningham) on securing this debate, and on the excellence of her speech and the arguments that she deployed.
I shall intrude on the time of the House for only a minute to amplify a point that the hon. Lady was kind enough to allow me to touch on in an intervention.
The Minister was kind enough to meet the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) and me in advance of last year's review. Subsequently, there have been some greatly appreciated--let me put that clearly on the record--improvements as a result of more sensitive monitoring locations for the highlands and islands. There are, however, other anomalies, which arise from those changes which I bring formally to the Minister's attention for further consideration in due course. If he could indicate at the appropriate time that that will happen, it would be appreciated.
A written parliamentary question from me last year elicited the response that, in the history of the scheme, the island of Tiree had never triggered payments. As a result,
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The island of Tiree continues to be used as a monitoring station for the Isle of Skye. Although someone looking at a map might think that an island such as Tiree bears some resemblance to the Isle of Skye, anyone who has looked at them from ground level knows that there is a vast climatic difference between an island that boasts, for example, the Cuillin hills and a rather severe climate, and Tiree, which is firmly located in the gulf stream. Will the Minister look into that? It would make more sense for Skye to be linked to a mainland monitoring point, or to the monitoring point that is available at Waterstein on the Isle of Skye itself.
I hope that I am not one of them, but I suspect that there are a number of stupid politicians on the Conservative Benches, who cannot see the simple logic of the Edinburgh tenants' case.
Our world has politicians too stupid to see the need--are you one of them?"
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