Rishi Sunak in bid to cancel winter fuel payment cut

Rishi Sunak has backed proposals for a Commons vote on the winter fuel payment.

The former prime minister is one of several MPs to have signed an Early Day Motion (EDM), urging the Government to back down on its policy to end the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners.

Winter fuel payments of up to £300 were previously paid to all pensioners, regardless of their income or benefits.

But Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed Labour had inherited a £22 billion “black hole” in this year’s budget when she arrived in Number 11 Downing Street, made up of allegedly unfunded spending pledges by the previous Conservative government, so declared she would limit winter fuel payments to people on income-related benefits or tax credits to ease fiscal pressures.

That policy is expected to reduce the number of pensioners in receipt of the payment by 10 million, from 11.4 million to 1.5 million, saving some £1.4 billion this financial year.

The Tories in opposition have begun efforts to block the move after Work and Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds laid the legislation designed to set it in motion on Thursday.

The new rules are due to come into force on September 16.

“This Labour government has tried to avoid scrutiny in Parliament for the consequences of their actions, but the public deserve better,” Conservative shadow treasury minister Laura Trott said.

The Government has used its powers to lay secondary legislation, which does not require a debate in the House of Commons chamber.

MPs who have signed the Conservatives’ motion, including Mr Sunak, shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt, shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, and shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho, have bid for the new rules to “be annulled”.

Ms Trott added: “Labour’s disastrous decision to scrap Winter Fuel Payments must be held to account.”

Tabling an EDM could put pressure on the Government to allow MPs to vote on the winter fuel payment proposals, but a vote is not guaranteed and the Government does not have to find time for a debate.

Conservative Party sources unveiled their EDM as news broke that the average household bill would rise by £149 from October after the regulator Ofgem said it would increase its price cap this winter.

The regulator announced it is hiking its cap by 10% from the current £1,568 for a typical household in England, Scotland and Wales to £1,717.

It is around £117 cheaper than the cap in October last year, which was £1,834.

Ofgem said rising prices in the international energy market, due to heightened political tensions and extreme weather events, were the main driver behind the decision.

Asked about the EDM, Labour backbencher Rachael Maskell did not say whether she would sign it, but she called on the Government to rethink its legislation.

Rachael Maskell (Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA)

The York Central MP told the PA news agency: “In the light of the sharp increase in the energy price cap, it is vital that the winter fuel payment regulations are withdrawn and amended as older people need to be kept warm and well this winter.

“Fuel poverty has a serious cost to health and life and no frail or elderly person should have to worry about putting the heat on.

“Labour must bring forward a package of support that will protect the most vulnerable this winter.”

Meanwhile, Labour peer Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who was also chair of the board of trustees of Age Scotland, called Reeves’s decision a “terrible blunder” and “critical error”.

He wrote in The Guardian: “I know there is widespread support, on the Labour benches, for a rethink and that Reeves can demonstrate she is the statesperson I know her to be by telling the Treasury mandarins to think again.”

On the price cap, a Labour spokesperson said earlier on Friday: “This price increase is the harvest of 14 years of Tory neglect and failure to prepare and invest in British-owned clean energy.

“While they were quick to blame everybody but themselves during the energy crisis, the Tories dragged their feet on energy security and took a hammer to the renewable energy sector, with working families still paying the price.”