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

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he is “not remotely happy” on having to vote to “take money away” from pensioners through cutting winter fuel allowance.

Mr Streeting did however share the government’s argument that the move is essential to balance public finances as the prime minister did not rule out suspending MPs for defying the government in Parliament.

Half a million people have now signed an Age UK petition calling on Sir Keir Starmer’s government to rethink its plans to cut the winter fuel payment.

Labour frontbenchers and MPs have reportedly expressed fears that chancellor Rachel Reeves’s “brutal” plan to scrap the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners will put more older people in hospital.

With MPs set to vote on the policy on Tuesday, Labour politicians have expressed their own grave concerns amid a flood of worried emails from constituents reported by The Independent to have shocked new MPs in particular.

In remarks to The Guardian, anonymous Labour MPs lined up to relay the sheer volume of the correspondence they have received on the issue, with one saying: “I don’t think there is a Labour MP who isn’t worried … I’ve had more people stopping me in the street than over Brexit. Pensioners just pleading that we don’t do this.”

One cabinet source complained to the paper that the policy “hasn’t even been thought through properly”, warning: “We’re going to end up with more old people in hospital or care as a result, with all the costs involved in that.”

Read the full report here:

Becoming the latest Labour MP to speak out on the record, Rosie Duffield told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday: “I think all MPs have been inundated with emails. It’s not just those constituents affected – it’s also their families and people who are really concerned.”

Ms Duffield added: “I’ve had letters – I think we all have – from people who are suffering ongoing illness like cancer, and their doctors are telling them how important it is to keep warm.

“Human life is our job to protect and we know that these people are going to feel cold and it’s going to affect their health. That’s my biggest worry – that we’re going to see people dying … it just feels particularly brutal.”

According to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, some 4,950 excess deaths the winter before last were caused by living in cold homes.

A Labour MP has backed a warning that pensioners “will die” as a result of the government’s proposed winter fuel allowance cut, reports Holly Patrick.

Speaking to LBC on Sunday, John McDonnell said: “Yes, that’s not me speaking. A number of MPs had a meeting with agencies representing older people… they’re saying this is a real risk that people will die as a result, as we have these excess deaths in winter.”

A former pensions secretary has suggested that the government could target winter fuel payments using a similar scheme to that used to hand out cost of living payments, including by basing eligibility on the value of someone’s home.

Former Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb, told Radio 4’s World at One programme that, for some, losing the winter fuel payments will be the equivalent of missing out on a week’s pension, meaning that many will “have to cut costs”.

He added: “Many people would accept taking the winter fuel payments from people financially at the top – but this is taking it away from people pretty near the bottom as well.”

The UK’s top union leader has warned Sir Keir Starmer that his lack of hope and new round of austerity will fuel rise of the far right in forgotten communities and bolster Nigel Farage’s push to win power.

Matt Wrack, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary who is currently president of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has warned Sir Keir that his mandate for power is based on a collapse in support for the Tories “not love for Labour”.

Mr Wrack made it clear he shared the anger over plans to take away winter fuel payments to 10 million pensioners and warned against using the “black hole” as a pretext for a spending cuts agenda.

“I think there have been some slightly worrying statements,” he said. “The Labour manifesto says there will be no return to austerity, and unions will be insisting on that. We’ve been told to tighten our belts for far too long, and I don’t think people are willing to take any more of that.”

Our political editor David Maddox has more in this report:

Granted that all governments have to make unpopular decisions – and that to govern, as has rightly been said, is to choose – the chancellor’s early decision to means test the annual winter fuel payment to pensioners has nonetheless turned out to be something of an own goal. How much of an own goal will become clearer during this week’s House of Commons debate and in the concluding vote.

Labour’s huge majority means that it is highly unlikely (read: impossible) that the government will be defeated. There is also support for the measure from some on the opposition benches.

That the vote is pretty much a foregone conclusion, however, does not negate its significance, because the main resistance will come from the government’s side, making it an early test of the chancellor’s – and the prime minister’s – authority.