Speeches by McKinnell.

“You are not able to give us a sense at all today of how many people might be awaiting payments still.”

“Okay. As long as all the information is correct when it comes to you, you will pay out a lump sum. But obviously that is not going to be the case for quite a lot of people. Therefore, you defer that to the Cabinet Office for a hardship loan?”

“That requires the process to work out how much they might be owed before any of those payments are made.”

“I have to say that it is not clear at all. I have some figures here that were, I believe, correct up to 23 February 2026. They say that you received 1,804 hardship cases: 798 were from active retirees in the last 12 months, 923 deferred for longer than 12 months, and 864 have had a lump sum paid. That could be the whol…”

“You do not provide any of the money towards that process.”

“Yes, but how is that going? That is what I asked, and you are not able to give me an answer.”

“I have no further questions, but I am not massively clearer.”

“Would you call that a loan though?”

“I appreciate that this is, I would hope, your number one workstream and priority at the moment. You will appreciate that, as Members of Parliament, we are contacted on a range of issues. However, this is the second biggest issue in my constituency inbox. That is to give you a sense of how important this is to constitue…”

“Sorry, how did you describe that? As a hardship—”

“How would you describe that? As a lump sum payment?”

“Or you will refer them?”

“You will advise them to refer themselves—”

“It is around 800 people waiting for that, did you say?”

“That is literally what I just said to you; I said around 800 people who you are waiting to process.”

“How many of those loans has Capita issued to date, and what is their total value?”

“Right, but if they are struggling with hardship, they may refer themselves—”

“This does not quite make sense to me in terms of the evidence you have given previously. The widows have been described to you, and the people who have been waiting since October. You are making it sound like a very efficient process, with people self-declaring as being in hardship and you being able to issue them with…”

“And then those who are simply waiting for a calculation—are you able to give a figure for those left with nothing in the interim?”

“I am pleased to chair the newly formed all-party parliamentary group for warm homes. Newcastle is leading the way with its hugely impactful warm homes local grant scheme run by Warmworks in conjunction with Newcastle city council. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to see more of these locally led grant sch…”