How Labour U-turned on scrapping winter fuel payments

Keir Starmer’s party has only been in government for three weeks – and already they’re spinning like a top. Rachel Reeves’ statement to the Commons yesterday was notable for making the kind of decisions which Labour would have castigated a Tory Chancellor for taking. Chief among them was the decision to scrap winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners to save £1.5 billion. In the future only 1.5m households will receive the payments going forward.

The decision may well be the right one but it is the complete opposite to what Labour was saying mere weeks ago. Just last month, a Labour spokesman insisted the party had ‘no plans’ to change the policy. And in November Darren Jones – the-now Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote to the Tories asking them to reassure pensioners that they wouldn’t means-test winter fuel payment. ‘Pensioners mustn’t be forced to bear the brunt of Tory economic failure,’ he wrote.