Winter fuel payment latest: Starmer blasted by union over cut as Reeves set for showdown with Labour rebels

There was no discussion of softening the impact of the winter fuel cut at cabinet on Monday, Downing Street said.

Whipping for the vote over the government’s plans to scrap the winter fuel allowance for all but the country’s poorest pensioners was also not discussed at cabinet, a No 10 spokesperson told reporters.

Labour MPs opposed to the policy are expected to abstain rather than vote against the government after Sir Keir Starmer removed the whip from seven MPs who voted against him on the two-child benefits cap.

The winter fuel payments cut is set to come as average household energy bills are to rise by £150 per year.

Regulator Ofgem announced last month that the average home energy bill will increase from £1,568 to £1,717 on 1 October, as it raises its price cap by 10 per cent.

There were gasps reported in the House of Commons when chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her plans to cut winter fuel payments, first introduced by her predecessor Gordon Brown in 1997.

Mr Brown said at the time that he was “simply not prepared to allow another winter to go by when pensioners are fearful of turning up their heating, even on the coldest winter days”.

Labour said in 2017 that deaths among the elderly had fallen from around 34,000 to 24,000 since the introduction of the winter fuel payment in 1997, allowing for variation in winter weather.

“No Labour MP is happy about this, no Labour MP is comfortable with it,” former journalist Paul Waugh – now the MP for Rochdale – told the BBC’s Westminster Hour programme.

But he argued that the winter fuel payment cut is necessary to help fill the £22bn “black hole which you cannot ignore”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to address Labour MPs this evening in a behind-closed-doors meeting, where she will face off with rebels over her cut to the winter fuel payment, Politico reports.

All eyes will be on whether Ms Reeves signals that there could be any plans to mitigate the impact of the cut for some of the lowest-income pensioners who will no longer qualify for the payment, ahead of Tuesday’s vote on the matter.

Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann has urged the government to U-turn on planned cuts to winter fuel payments, claiming it may not be aware of the extent of poverty among pensioners, our political correspondent Millie Cooke reports.

She suggested the changes should have come in from 2025 to allow time to find mitigation measures.

Baroness Altmann told Times Radio, if these regulations had come into force from 2025, “I don’t think there would be this kind of furore because everybody would feel there is some time now to find mitigation measures, maybe to take it away from particular income groups, maybe to extend the means test threshold to include more pensioners who otherwise will be left out.”

She added: “The government, I wish, would recognise there’s no shame in saying we got this one a little bit wrong, we’re just going to pause and take time to do it properly.”

The former pensions minister also said the government may not be aware of the extent of poverty among pensioners, warning that the one to two million people slightly above the means test threshold “are poorer than those on pension credit and there is no mitigation for them”.

She said: “The chancellor and the prime minister may not be aware of just how there are so many poor pensioners in this country and are focusing perhaps just on those who are very well off.”

Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson earlier told the BBC that the government wass working to ensure all pensioners who were entitled to pension credit claimed the benefit, adding that she was “sure” other mitigations were being looked at by ministers.

However, Treasury sources told the PA news agency that Dame Diana “misspoke” in suggesting the government was looking at doing more than encouraging further take-up of pension credit.

It came as the i newspaper reported that officials had been exploring plans in recent days for a “social tariff” to help lower-income households with their energy bills.

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has told ITV she will “reluctantly” vote for the government’s winter fuel allowance cut, but emphasised that it was “a difficult decision”.

Here is The Independent’s report from 2017 on Labour’s pre-election warning that Tory plans to make the cut announced seven years later by chancellor Rachel Reeves would lead to nearly 4,000 excess deaths.

At the time, Tory work and pensions secretary Damian Green had hit back that the figures were “irresponsible scaremongering by Jeremy Corbyn”.