Starmer faces more backlash over winter fuel payment cuts

It’s the first day back in parliament after recess and already Labour splits are starting to emerge. Now it transpires that the party’s MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, has tabled an early day motion to delay the changes to the winter fuel allowance – which his government controversially plans to means test. In order to plug the £22bn blackhole in the UK’s finances, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that ‘incredibly tough choices’ will have to be made – yet the prospect of 10 million pensioners missing out on the winter payment has ruffled feathers, given Sir Keir’s lefty lot curiously managed to find enough cash to fund public sector pay rises…

Duncan-Jordan’s motion slams the proposed regulations for the winter fuel payment for being ‘introduced without prior consultation or an impact assessment, nor with sufficient time to put in place a proper and effective take-up campaign for Pension Credit’. The Labour MP then goes on to blast the planned introduction of a ‘bureaucratic and unpopular means test, which undermines the benefits over universalism’.