The cut to winter fuel payments is unnecessary, but Starmer is doing it to serve the same interests of wealth and militarism the Tories served, argues Steph Pike 

Within a month of being appointed the new Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced that the Labour government would cut winter fuel payments for ten million pensioners. At the same time, it was announced that fuel prices would be rising by 10%, way above the current inflation rate of 2.2%. At the moment, the winter fuel payment is paid automatically to all people of pension age regardless of their income or savings; it is a non-means-tested universal benefit paid to all pensioners to recognise the extra heating costs that they have because of their need to keep warm, and the dire consequences if they are unable to.

The Labour government’s plan will restrict winter fuel payments only to those pensioners receiving means-tested benefits such as Pension Credit, removing this crucial help (annual payments of £200 or £300 pounds depending on age) from ten million elderly people. This move will plunge an estimated 100,000 more pensioners into poverty; charities that work with pensioners have warned that bringing in this policy will leave elderly and vulnerable people who are just above the Pension Credit limit having to choose between eating or heating their homes and could risk a rise in cold weather deaths.

It has been widely condemned by anti-poverty charities, pensioners’ associations, other political parties and anti-austerity campaigners. The £1.5-billion-a-year cut the winter fuel allowance is predicted to save is small change compared to the £7 billion the Labour government has pledged to prolong the bloody war in Ukraine and the extra £20 billion a year by which it has pledged to increase defence spending. This decision is therefore unnecessary, cruel and mean-spirited but sadly unsurprising from a government that has consistently refused to abolish the two-child limit and the benefit cap; arguably two of the most cruel and destructive of the Tories’ welfare policies.

Oppose in the streets

With many Labour MPs including senior members of the government feeling increasingly uncomfortable about this decision, Reeves and Starmer have been wringing their hands and shedding crocodile tears claiming that this is a decision they hate having to make, but over which they have no choice, citing a £22 billion hole in the country’s finance. This supposed problem is entirely artificial, and does not reflect real fiscal issues, but even so, cutting money from elderly people already struggling to make ends meet is not a necessity but a political choice. It is a lie to tell us that there is no other option. The government could borrow more, it could stop spending billions on arms and war, it could tax the rich. It chooses not to; instead, like the Tories, it chooses to continue to take money from the poorest in society.

Despite the TUC and many unions including the RMT and Unite being vocally critical of this proposal and calling on the government to back down and scrap this unpopular policy, Labour’s proposal was voted through in parliament on Tuesday by 348 to 228 votes. While a number of Labour MPs have been critical, Jon Trickett was the only Labour MP to vote against, along with 4 of the 7 who had already had their whip removed from opposing the two-child benefit cap. Up to 53 Labour MPs abstained (how many deliberately abstained vs just being absent or paired is unknown as yet). Abstaining however is not enough. Their failure to vote against this tells us what we already know; that any real challenge to Labour’s programme of cuts will not come through the parliamentary route but through a united, grassroots anti-austerity movement.

Some liberal commentators have tried to defend the cuts to the winter fuel payment by arguing that it is unfair that rich pensioners should receive money from the state. This is a false argument. Means testing a universal benefit achieves nothing but further impoverishing thousands of pensioners just above the income level for means-tested benefits. The answer is not to cut benefits but to tax the rich properly. The problem with this Labour government is that, like the Tories, it governs not for the ordinary people but for the rich. Like its policy on Palestine, its decision to cut winter fuel payments is incredibly unpopular, with 69% of the general public thinking it is wrong. By continuing Tory cuts, by attacking universal benefits, the Labour government is making itself, like the Tories before it, universally unpopular.