Keir Starmer defends Winter Fuel Payment cut and takes swipe at the SNP

Keir Starmer
-Credit: (Image: Getty Images.)


Keir Starmer last night said state pension rises would outweigh the scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners. The Prime Minister also said older people had been hit by high inflation and said scaling back the WFP was needed to get the economy under control.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves caused anger when she announced plans to take up to £300 from 10million pensioners by means-testing the WFP. Her proposals, designed to save £1.5bn, have been criticised as older people on modest incomes will lose out at a time of rising energy costs.

The payment is being devolved and will result in a cut in funding from Westminster to Holyrood and around 900,000 older Scots taking a hit. Speaking to the Scottish press, Starmer was asked if he had considered the colder climate in Scotland.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour MPs lack 'backbone' to oppose Winter Fuel Payment cuts, says SNP

READ MORE: Shona Robison compared to Margaret Thatcher for 'raid' on renewables cash

“Yes of course,” he said. “We have got to stabilise the economy and if you ask any pensioner what are the things that have made life so difficult in recent years they will say to you, ‘my energy bills went through the roof’.

“I’ve had pensioners across the UK, including in Scotland, telling me their energy bills were going through the roof and it was really, really difficult for them. They told me the cost of living crisis was so bad that they were in the supermarkets picking out items and then putting them back down again because they could not afford them.

“But when inflation got out of control it was pensioners who paid the price. So we had to secure the economy for pensioners and we had to recognise that we can’t secure and fix the economy if we can’t get our transport systems working, if we don’t have our health systems working."

READ MORE: Winter Fuel Payment cut slammed by former Scottish Labour leader as critics round on UK Government

He also said of a more stable economy: "It’s also the foundation for the triple lock, which in the end means that the state pension will increase in a way that outstrips the Winter Fuel Payment.”

On the economic problems inherited by the Tories, he also aimed a dig at the SNP Government, saying: “We could pretend it didn’t exist. We could walk past it. We could put it into the long grass. All of that was done by the last Government and is still being done in its equivalent form, by the SNP, in my view. Or we could be honest about it, say that it requires us to make tough decisions."

It came after a former Scottish Labour leader called on the UK Government to scrap plans to strip millions of pensioners of their Winter Fuel Payment. MSP Richard Leonard demanded a re-think ahead of a crunch vote today (TUES) and urged Starmer to impose a wealth tax instead.

Leonard, who led his party between 2017 and 2021, told the Record: “For me the treatment of our older citizens is a test of our values as a society. “We know the oldest pensioners are the poorest pensioners: many of them older women with no occupational pensions.

“And we know that providing universal support to reach everyone who needs it is not only morally right, it is much cheaper than means testing. “This plan should be scrapped and replaced with a wealth tax”

He was backed up by Roz Foyer, who as general secretary of the STUC is the country's most senior trade unionist. She said: "Cutting pensioner's fuel payments is a political choice.

"Just because a Labour Prime Minister is fronting these cuts doesn’t make them any less misguided. They must see the error of their ways. People voted Labour for change, not cuts.

"There are solutions: a wealth tax targeting the top 1 per cent is more than enough to cover the shortfall in the public finances and sends a clear signal from the UK Government that they are on the side of those in need. The choice remains with the Chancellor: protect pensioners or the profiteers. We hope she chooses the former.”

MPs will vote on the cut today amid growing concern from charities about the impact of older people in the winter The SNP also piled pressure on Labour after none of the party’s Scottish MPs signed a parliamentary motion criticising the cut.

SNP MP Chris Law said: "No matter how many Scottish Labour MPs were elected they neither have the stomach or the backbone to stand up for Scotland's pensioners. Anas Sarwar's 'read my lips' speech saying there will be no austerity was nothing more than empty words.

"As his own Scottish Labour colleagues ignore both his words and that of the Scottish Labour Party, it is clear that he leads the powerless branch office of the UK Labour Party."

He added: "Scottish Labour MPs also represent some of the coldest parts of the UK, yet they will stand aside and do nothing."

A new poll commissioned by the Scottish Lib Dems found that over half of pensioners north of the border said they will likely heat their homes less this winter due to the WFP cut.

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