Downing Street rejects First Minister’s call to ‘rethink’ winter fuel policy

Sir Keir Starmer has rejected calls for a U-turn over the decision to strip winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners after Labour suffered a backlash at the ballot box.

Welsh First Minister Baroness Eluned Morgan said the decision to means-test the previously universal benefit was “something that comes up time and again” as she called for a “rethink”.

Cabinet minister Wes Streeting acknowledged voters’ anger at the policy, announced shortly after Labour took office last year, but said there was no formal review of the measure.

‘No change’

Downing Street confirmed “there will not be a change to the Government’s policy” despite the concerns raised by Lady Morgan and other senior Labour figures about the removal of the annual payments worth up to £300 to pensioners.

The Prime Minister’s press secretary said the Government will not be “blown off course” after the local election results.

He said: “We were elected as a stable and serious party after 14 years of chaos and decline.”

Labour lost the previously safe Runcorn and Helsby constituency in a by-election and almost 200 councillors as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK made sweeping gains in last week’s elections.

Lady Morgan also fears Reform making significant gains in Wales at next year’s Senedd election.

In a speech in Cardiff she said there were “two Labour governments working together” in Cardiff Bay and Westminster but insisted she would challenge Sir Keir where they disagreed.

Lady Morgan said: “The cut in winter fuel allowance is something that comes up time and again, and I hope the UK Government will rethink this policy.”

She also said the UK Government’s welfare reform proposals “are causing serious concern here, where we have a higher number of people dependent on disability benefits than elsewhere”.

Spats

The First Minister added: “We know that splits and spats make for easy news, but this isn’t drama.

“This is honesty, this is responsibility.

“This is what leadership looks like.”

Asked about her comments, Sir Keir’s press secretary said: “We won’t agree on everything, but we are aligned in our mission to deliver security and renewal for working people.”

The Guardian reported that, while a full restoration of the universal winter fuel payment was unlikely, the Government was considering whether to increase the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance.

But such a move has been rejected by Downing Street, partly because the payment is now aligned with eligibility for pension credit and widening access to that would wipe out any savings from the policy.

The decision last July to restrict the winter fuel payment to the poorest pensioners was intended to save around £1.5 billion a year, with more than nine million people who would have previously been eligible losing out.

‘Aren’t happy’

Mr Streeting told BBC Breakfast: “I know that people aren’t happy about winter fuel allowance, in lots of cases.

“We did protect it for the poorest pensioners but there are lots of people saying they disagree with it regardless.”

The Health Secretary defended the decision and other “unpopular” measures such as the hike in employers’ national insurance contributions, arguing they were necessary to raise cash to address the various “crises” across public services including the NHS and prisons.

In response to the electoral backlash, he told LBC: “We have to take that on the chin, and we are.

“In Government, we’re genuinely impatient for change.

“We are going hard at the challenges that the public has set for us.

“And we’re under no illusion – and I think the voters have sent us a fundamental message, ‘we voted for change with Labour last year, if you don’t deliver change, if we’re not feeling it, we’ll vote for change elsewhere’.

“So we’ve got that message loud and clear.

“We take the results on the chin.

“We’re back in Parliament today, picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves down, and with things like the GP announcement today showing the country we’ve got the message, when the Prime Minister said ‘go further and faster’, we’re on the case.”

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said “there will not be a change to the Government’s policy” on winter fuel payments.

He added that the decision “was one that we had to take to ensure economic stability and repair the public finances following the £22 billion black hole left by the previous government”.

The spokesman also pointed to an expected £1,900 increase in the state pension over the course of the Parliament and an extension to the household support fund as ways the Government was supporting pensioners.

Tone deaf

Responding to the UK Government’s response, Welsh Liberal Democrat Westminster Spokesperson David Chadwick MP said: “This is a completely tone-deaf response from Labour.

“The public is rightly furious at the UK Labour Government’s decision to rip vital support from millions of the most vulnerable, yet ministers simply are not listening.

“From the Winter Fuel Payments to the Family Farm Tax, to welfare cuts and unfair transport funding for Wales, this Government has turned a blind eye to the millions of Welsh people who can feel the damage that these half-baked polices are doing. It is time to change course.”