A senior Conservative MP has blasted Sir Keir Starmer for “hoodwinking” his own Labour MPs by withholding a damaging report which said 100,000 pensioners could be driven into fuel poverty by axing winter fuel payments.
Labour won the vote in the Commons to push ahead with Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ controversial plans to slash the money given to millions of elderly people each year to help with heating bills.
Labour had argued restricting the winter fuel allowance to only those claiming pension credit would save around £1.5 billion a year, and Sir Keir insisted elderly Britons would still be “better off” due to the increase in the state pension.
But now damning figures have emerged in an impact assessment from the Department of Work and Pensions which shows cutting the payments will plunge 100,000 pensioners into poverty by 2026.
GB News host Eamonn Holmes put the new figures to Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp this morning (Wednesday) sparking a furious reaction from the MP who voted against the Labour plans.
Mr Philp said: “It’s terrible… a hundred thousand pensioners driven into poverty by this winter fuel decision the Labour government have made is terrible.
“Obviously I voted against it, Conservatives voted against it, for precisely this reason, and of course that impact assessment you just read out… the Labour government hid that during the vote.
“When we voted on this a few weeks ago they deliberately did not publish that impact assessment, and they hid it from Parliament, and hid it from their own MPs who the government were trying to hoodwink… they successfully hoodwinked… into voting for this terrible measure.
Mr Philp added: “The fact that they are taking winter fuel payment away from almost every pensioner, driving 100,000 into poverty, is even worse when we now discover this morning inflation is on the way up as well.”
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall revealed the government’s assessment of the impact of the winter fuel cut in a letter to MPs, but stressed the figures did not take into account plans to increase the numbers on pension credit.
She told the Work and Pensions Committee: “The latest modelling shows that compared to the numbers that would have been in poverty without this policy, it is estimated that in each year in question there will be an additional 50,000 pensioners in relative poverty after housing costs in 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2027-28, instead.
“The modelling also shows that an additional 100,000 pensioners are estimated to be in relative poverty after housing costs in 2026-27, 2028-29 and 2029-30.”
Ms Kendall said the Labour had been “forced” to limit the payment due to the “£22 billion black hole” it blamed the Conservatives for leaving behind.
