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

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 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.
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.”
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.