UK government will stand firm on plan to cut winter fuel payments, says minister

Plans to scale back winter fuel payments for pensioners will not be watered down, a UK government minister has said, after dozens of Labour MPs abstained on a key Commons vote on Tuesday night.

The housing and planning minister, Matthew Pennycook, was speaking the morning after MPs voted to remove the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners in England and Wales.

A Conservative motion to strike down the move was defeated by 348 votes to 228.

Pennycook said he appreciated the concern many colleagues had raised, but he said: “We’re not going to water down that policy. We think it’s the right decision to make.”

Asked about the government’s decision to award pay increases to public sector workers while reducing winter fuel support, he told Sky News: “What this government has done is implement the recommendations of the independent public sector pay review bodies.

“Now, unless the opposition in parliament are saying they would have rejected those recommendations out of hand, allowed industrial action to continue, which was extremely costly to the UK economy, they would have faced that same decision.”

MPs voted to reject the Conservative motion on Tuesday by a majority of 120, with about a dozen Labour MPs thought to have deliberately abstained and one, Jon Trickett, voting against.

The veteran MP was joined by five of the seven Labour MPs who were suspended after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap: Ian Byrne, Apsana Begum, Zarah Sultana, Richard Burgon and John McDonnell.

“For me, this was a matter of conscience. This cut is not only going to cause even greater hardship for so many pensioners in my constituency who are already living in poverty, but it will also cost lives,” Burgon said on X.

Asked on the BBC about Trickett and what sanctions the party might take, Pennycook said it would be a decision for the whip.

However, it will be the high number of abstentions that will worry Downing Street and Labour whips, with the government trying to use the debate to reiterate its argument that removing winter fuel allowance from all but older people who receive pensioner benefits such as pension credit was a tough but unavoidable choice.

Among those who abstained after giving speeches was Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central, who has been one of the most outspoken Labour critics of the plan and called for it to be delayed and rethought.

Pensioners, she said, “make the hardest budgetary decisions, harder than those of the Treasury, where there are choices. They have no choice. They have to put a roof over the head, they have to pay for their food, and they have to pay for their heating”.

Neil Duncan-Jordan, who was elected in July as the Labour MP for Poole, said the argument that pensioners in need could just apply for pension credit and thus get the payment missed the point of the current universality.

Pennycook used the morning broadcast round to defend the move on the basis of the government’s financial inheritance from the Conservatives. He told the BBC: “We did not expect on taking office to discover there was a £22m black hole in the public finances.”



The Guardian