Keir Starmer told reporters in Tirana, Albania, that means testing winter fuel payments was the right thing to do, but did not deny reports that thresholds could change
Keir Starmer has left the door open for changes to the controversial winter fuel shakeup.
The Prime Minister refused to deny reports that the policy could be altered to make more people eligible. The Government has faced a fierce backlash over the decision to limit the payments to those claiming pension credit and other benefits, meaning more than 10million pensioners miss out.
According to the i newspaper, talks in No10 about changing the policy have been ramped up this week amid fears that voters will not forgive Labour. The change would see the £11,500 income threshold raised.
There are also discussions about abandoning it altogether – but this is extremely unlikely, it was reported. Speaking to reporters in Tirana, Albania, Mr Starmer was asked three times whether he was considering changing the thresholds – but did not rule it out.
Instead he insisted that the policy was the right thing to do. He said: “Look, we took difficult decisions, but the right decisions, at the budget, including the decision that we took on winter fuel.
“As a result of those decisions. I mean, they were taken specifically with the purpose of stabilising the economy. And I think we’re seeing the evidence of that in the interest rate cuts and the growth figures.
“So, they were difficult decisions but they were right decisions.”
Sources suggested Chancellor Rachel Reeves could announce the change next month in her spending review.
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Downing Street were firm last week that no u-turn was planned on the policy.
The PM’s official spokesman said: “The policy is set out, there will not be a change to the government policy, which set out the difficult decision we had to take to ensure economic stability, repair the public finances following the £22billion blackhole left by the previous government.”
Pressed further, they said: “The government has set out its policies and the reasons behind these policies and there is no change to the government policy and will not be a change to the government’s policy.”
But the PM has been under mounting pressure from Labour MPs who say the policy had been hugely damaging to the party in the local elections.
And talks inside Downing Street are said to have ramped up this week after internal focus groups suggested voters would forgive the government for backing down on the policy.
Furious voters punished Labour in this month’s local elections, which saw Labour lose two-thirds of the seats it was defending as well as the Runcorn by-election.
Mr Starmer’s suggestion that the economy was starting to stabilise could be an indication of how they could justify softening the policy – by saying means testing the costly benefit was needed last year, but not this year.
Winter Fuel Payments are worth up to £300 and were available to everyone over state pension age before the Government’s shake-up. Following reports that the threshold could be raised, money saving expert Martin Lewis wrote: “That’d be welcome but still doesn’t fix the worst underlying problem… the means testing mechanism (ie to get it you must claim Pension Credit) is flawed.
“Around 700,000 of the most vulnerable pensioners, already earning under £11,500, don’t get Winter Fuel Payments because they don’t go through the overly arduous process of claiming Pension Credit. Thus they miss out in both the important support that brings and on Winter Fuel Payments. That needs to change.”