Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 18 September 2024.
Jane Hutt
Labour
2:35,
18 September 2024
An important follow-up question indeed. I was very pleased to receive a letter from the Right Honourable Liz Kendall MP—she's the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—only this week, in response to my correspondence, my letter, to her earlier in the summer, to ask the questions about how can we address this in terms of meeting the needs, particularly, of our poorest pensioners in Wales, who are not claiming pension credit. And many of you will be aware that our former Older People's Commissioner, Heléna Herklots, took this as a very strong pension credit campaign. We were involved as a Welsh Government in that. So, we are engaging very closely with the UK Government campaign. We've shared with stakeholders across Wales the pension credit social media messages, we've got our Welsh Government 'Claim what's yours' campaign, encouraging people to contact Advicelink Cymru for help to claim with pension credit. We're putting posters in our doctors' surgeries. It's across the whole of Welsh Government that we're looking to help get this message across.
But I do think also that this is about prevention, about how we support our pensioner households in Wales. And the investment of £30 million this year into our Warm Homes Nest scheme to tackle Fuel Poverty for homeowners and households renting with private landlords is crucially important. Now, can I just say one other point? Not enough pensioners are taking up our discretionary assistance fund to provide emergency support for households. So, I do urge you to take up, with your constituents, and particularly pensioners, and give them the information, particularly via our 'Claim what's yours' campaign, of discretionary assistance payments, which is something that we in Wales have of course supported and made a priority in our budget.
The government chief whip, whose official title is parliamentary secretary to the Treasury, is appointed by the prime minister and is responsible to him.
The chief whip has to maintain party discipline and to try to ensure that members of the party vote with the government in important debates.
Along with the other party whips he or she looks after the day-to-day management of the government's business in Parliament.
The chief whip is a member of the Cabinet.
It is customary for both the government and the opposition chief whips not to take part in parliamentary debates.
The chief whip's official residence is Number 12 Downing Street.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Right Honourable is a form of address used within the House of Commons, for members of the Privy Council. Members of the person’s own party will refer to them as ‘My Right Honourable Friend, the member for [constituency]’. Members of other parties will refer to them as ‘The Right Honourable Lady/Gentleman, the member for [constituency]’. The Privy Council consists of, among others, Cabinet ministers and a number of junior ministers as well as former office holders.
A household is said to be in fuel poverty when its members cannot afford to keep adequately warm at reasonable cost, given their income.
