The real significance of the winter fuel row

The question of whether to scrap winter fuel payments to all but the poorest retirees is a very British debate, in that it’s any sort of debate at all. Rachel Reeves’s reforms are estimated to save £1.3 billion this year and £1.5 billion in subsequent years. That’s not nothing but, for a sense of scale, it’s equivalent to half the devolved Welsh government’s annual climate change budget. Meanwhile, the UK has a fiscal deficit of £120 billion and the Treasury is borrowing £1,780 per capita to meet public expenditure priorities. Government borrowing is at its fourth-highest level since 1993. Public sector net debt stands at 99.4 per cent of GDP, a level last seen in the early 1960s. Our annual welfare bill is £319 billion, of which the most expensive item is the state pension at £124 billion. Our health spending last year was £212 billion. That the Chancellor had to fight to save a puny £1.5