Starmer ‘Absolutely Clear’ Pensioner Winter Fuel Allowance Needs to Be Cut

Britain's Prime Sir Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street in central London on Sept. 4, 2024. Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he stands by his decision to put forward plans cutting access to Winter Fuel Payments for millions of pensioners.

Starmer told the BBC on Sunday that he was “absolutely clear in [his] own mind” that restricting the benefit was necessary to fix the economy and enable the new Labour government to fulfil its election pledges to improve public services and deal with crime and immigration.

The prime minister said, “We can’t bring about that change if we don’t fix the fundamentals and stabilise our economy.”

“Equally clear in my mind, in order to deliver the change which we will deliver, we have to fix the foundations now. And that’s tough decisions,” he said on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.”

He added: “Talking to many pensioners in the last two or three years, the things that have hit the most and hardest are inflation because it got out of control over the last government, energy bills because the steps that were needed to be taken years ago weren’t taken, and the cost of living ... That’s why we’re fixing the foundations now, tough though that may be.”

In July, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced a plan to limit the winter fuel allowance—worth around £300 this year—only to pensioners in receipt of Pension Credit or other means-tested benefits in order to help fill a £22 billion hole in the public finances.

The changes would bring down the numbers of those claiming it from 11.4 million pensioners to an estimated 1.5 million, saving the Treasury around £1.4 billion annually. However, charities have criticised the move and research by a pensions consultancy firm warned that some 1.6 million pensioners living below the poverty line could be affected.

The plans are to go to the House of Commons for a vote on Tuesday.

‘Bureaucratic and Unpopular’

Starmer said that he was prepared for his government to make unpopular decisions in order to correct course on the economy, and this decision is already proving unpopular within his own party.

Around a dozen Labour MPs have backed an Early Day Motion calling for the measures to be postponed until an impact assessment has been done.

The motion—supported by Labour MPs including Nadia Whittome, Ian Lavery, and Clive Lewis—describes the plan as a “bureaucratic and unpopular means test” for seniors and criticised it for failing to take into account those with modest incomes that are just above the entitlement threshold for Pension Credit.

It also noted the “worrying annual excess winter death figures among pensioners” and recognised the impact a rise in the energy price cap of 10 percent from October will have on pensioners.

Also among the sponsors and supporters of the motion are six of the seven MPs who were suspended from the Labour Party in July for voting against the government over the two-child Universal Credit cap and who now sit as independents.

One of those, former party shadow chancellor John McDonnell, said that among the decisions the new government is making to fix the economy, this is “the wrong choice.”

McDonnell said he spoke to the Labour whip last week, asking for Starmer or Reeves to bring forward an amended version of the measures “that isn’t going to impact upon people in my constituency who are facing hardship. Bring something forward, and I’m happy to allow this to go through in a revised form.”

“But if that doesn’t happen by Tuesday, I will vote against. I can’t do anything else. I just can’t. I wouldn’t be fulfilling my responsibilities to represent my community if I didn’t vote against,” the MP for Hayes and Harlington told LBC on Sunday.

Party Suspensions

Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield said that while she was opposed to her government’s plans she would not be voting against them on Tuesday, aware of Labour’s recent history of suspending rebel MPs.

Duffield told Times Radio on Saturday: “I won’t be voting against, because this government has made it very clear that Labour MPs who vote against this new government will be punished and have the whip removed.

“But I will be showing that I don’t agree with them by abstaining. And I know a few colleagues are doing the same.”

Asked whether MPs would be suspended for voting against the government on Tuesday, Starmer told Keunssberg that it was a matter for the chief whip to decide.

“I’m glad we’re having a vote, because I think it’s very important for parliament to speak on this. But every Labour MP was elected in on the same mandate as I was, which will deliver the change that we need for the country over the time we’ve got in office,” he said.