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Labour has no choice but to cut winter fuel payment, minister insists

10 Sep 2024 3 minute read
Jonathan Reynolds. Photo Maja Smiejkowska/PA Wire

Labour has “no choice” but to cut the winter fuel payment, a Cabinet minister insisted as he appealed to dissenting backbenchers to back the Government in a Commons vote on the policy.

Jonathan Reynolds urged MPs to “be the team that fixes this country” and not “rely on your colleagues to make the difficult decisions” as Sir Keir Starmer’s administration braces for internal unrest over the plans.

Speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday, the Business Secretary rejected suggestions that the Government’s decision to strip all but the country’s poorest pensioners of the allowance could see some die of cold this winter.

Asked whether ministers accepted this was a possibility, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “No. We are making sure that we can reassure people by saying the state pension is higher than last winter and energy bills are lower than last winter.”

Pressed on why the Government was pursuing the policy, he told Sky News: “We have no choice.”

Critics

Critics, including from within party ranks, have questioned why Labour is not targeting the wealthy instead of pensioners as it insists the cut is necessary to fill what it describes as a “£22 billion black hole” in the public finances.

“We have a Budget coming up but we’ve made clear that taxes which we’ve inherited are already high on working people,” Mr Reynolds insisted on Tuesday.

Number 10 is holding firm against pressure to soften the policy, with a spokeswoman saying on Monday that there were no discussions of introducing mitigations to ease its impact.

The Prime Minister will face down critics of the policy during an appearance at the TUC Congress on Tuesday after unions voiced fierce opposition to the plans in their current form.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham accused Labour of “picking the pocket of pensioners”, calling instead for a wealth tax to raise funds, while RMT boss Mick Lynch likened the Government to the Grinch over the plans.

Unease

Chancellor Rachel Reeves sought to quell backbench unease at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster on Monday evening, where she told MPs she was “not immune” to concerns about the cut.

A spokesperson for the Chancellor said that MPs showed “strong support” at the closed-doors gathering.

Under the plans, the winter fuel allowance for pensioners will be limited to only those claiming pension credit or other means-tested benefits.

It is expected to cut the number of people receiving the payment of up to £300 by 10 million, from 11.4 million to 1.5 million, which the Government hopes will save about £1.4 billion this year.

The Tories accused Labour of having failed to “properly examine” the implications of the policy.

“This has been completely rushed. There’s no need to do this as quickly as the Government has done, other than for purely political reasons,” shadow work and pensions secretary and Conservative leadership candidate Mel Stride told Times Radio.

“And it means that the implications of this, of course, have not been properly examined in the normal way that they would be, and which is why even trade unions such as Unite has described this as picking the pockets of pensioners.”


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Neil Anderson
Neil Anderson
3 hours ago

Are we going to receive continual fiscal nonsense from the Westminster government? There was a choice to cut the WFA – but, Minister Reynolds, it was a political choice, not an economic choice, wasn’t it? There are many less unsavoury means of raising funds by government, but your government (not ours) has turned its face away to alternatives. ‘We hear you but we are not listening’ – their alternative to good governance. And it won’t be the last time that such idiocy emanates from ignorant politicians. Economic management is not usually their strong suit. Neither is politics it seems. It… Read more »

Ernie The Smallholder
Ernie The Smallholder
1 hour ago
Reply to  Neil Anderson

I am hoping that Plaid Cymru, SNP, the Greens and the Liberal democrats can persuade enough labour MPs to stop the removal of the universal winter fuel allowance and protect the even more valuable triple-lock annual increase that the LDs negotiated in the coalition.

We need a redistribution of wealth from the billionaires to the people.
These proposals, as they stand, will do nothing to challenge the monopolisation of wealth in the UK.

jimmy
jimmy
3 hours ago

Tax Havens (like the UK) by definition refrain from taxing wealth and avoid any policy that might cause the depreciation of the currency or trust in it. ‘The Finance Curse’ is all-pervading.

Ernie The Smallholder
Ernie The Smallholder
1 hour ago
Reply to  jimmy

If a nation is in this problem it is because the nation has no assets.

Revenue earning ASSETS are the key to increase growth.

Howie
Howie
2 hours ago

Report yesterday on HMRC and tax lost to small business who set up then fold before tax due, £5bn a year, chase them not low income pensioners, I believe threshold changed to same as limit for getting help with energy efficiency measures, such as NEST in Wales £18,660.
He has let down TATA workers after his and Jo Stevens pre election promise of a better way and deal to save jobs. Another day another Labour lie.

Ernie The Smallholder
Ernie The Smallholder
57 minutes ago
Reply to  Howie

2026 is the judgement year.

Make sure that UK Labour, UK Conservative, nor their friends UK reform NEVER get elected to OUR Senedd.

Make 2026 the year of OUR PLAID CYMRU government with Plaid Cymru, Cymru Greens and Liberal democrats (UK’s only federal party) the only large party groups in our Senedd.

Last edited 55 minutes ago by Ernie The Smallholder
Why vote
Why vote
2 hours ago

Labour has “no choice” if this is the last resort to save the economy, robbing pensioners, where are any further cuts to come from there is no more available from any other source, politicians that talk so much bull should be sacked on the spot.

Linda Jones
Linda Jones
1 hour ago

‘No choice’, what a joke. The comment suggests complete economic ignorance on the part of J Reynolds. There is always other choices, fact is Starmer and co are sold on tory neo liberal ideology and monetarist economic policy. There is no difference between the tories and Labour, we now live in an elected dictatorship which leaves most ordinary people with no representation in government.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 hour ago

500,000 extra deaths since Dave and Osborne took over…

The Fat Shanks Effect includes the new normal where whole swathes of the population can be bumped off at the drop of a minister’s scarf…

What is not revealed is how many of the hen oed there are among this vast army of souls departed and how much gold have they forfeited to the treasury already, who claim, more must die for that is a given as standard policy…

Bankers and Lawyers will always fail you when they have too much power…

i.e. become senior Ministers of the State…

Last edited 59 minutes ago by Mab Meirion
Chris
Chris
40 minutes ago

“No choice” and “£22 billion black hole”  Both BS statements from BS politicians who claim to be different to the ‘other lot’ but are in reality just the same. There were plenty of choices. We could stop giving £11bn away over the next two years to foreign countries to combat climate change for a start. The “£22 billion black hole”  wasn’t a surprise at all, the OBR had been warning us before the election that neither the Tories nor Labours manifestoes added up. The real question journalists should be asking these politicians is “why didn’t you know about this ‘black… Read more »

John Ellis
John Ellis
29 minutes ago

‘Labour has “no choice” but to cut the winter fuel payment, a Cabinet minister insisted …’ In principle, the new government’s case for taking this step is at least arguable: no one – other than Conservative politicians and their ample media support network, of course – has seriously or credibly challenged the reality of the £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the national finances, and the Truss tragi-comedy is a stark recent reminder of what may well happen when a government ignores financial realities. But opting to pick on the older people’s winter fuel allowance as the very first ‘flagship’ action… Read more »

Last edited 29 minutes ago by John Ellis
Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
3 minutes ago
Reply to  John Ellis

Dickens is perhaps the clue, to be a trusted trustee you have administer a punishment beating of some nature to convince your base that you are cynical and hard enough to keep their money safe and their workers in line…

Captain Clark of Kent and Pusser Bumble with First Mate Morgan intend to do just that…

Last edited 2 minutes ago by Mab Meirion

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