Pensioners catch Christmas chill from Labour’s winter fuel payment raid: half plan to turn down the heating and a third will spend less on festive gifts – while one in six will EAT less_Nhy
More than half of pensioners who will lose their winter fuel allowance this year plan to turn down their heating as a result, a new poll has revealed.
Almost a third (32 per cent) of those aged 65 and over also said they plan to have a more miserable Christmas period, spending less on gifts and festive food and drink.
And more than a third (35 per cent) said they will make other cutbacks on essential items, while one in six (16 per cent) said they will cut down on food altogether.
The poll by Savanta for the Liberal Democrats comes as Sir Keir and his new government face growing pressure over the removal of the payment, which gives pensioners up to £300 to put towards towards utility bills.
Lib Dem work and pensions spokesman Steve Darling said: ‘The new government’s disastrous decision to cut Winter Fuel Payments for millions of vulnerable people risks ruining many pensioners’ Christmas this year.
‘Ministers have also abjectly failed to meaningfully boost pension credit uptake meaning hundreds of thousands of people who should be getting and desperately need support will have to go without this winter.
‘The government needs to swallow its pride and reverse these reckless cuts that will leave millions of vulnerable people having to choose between heating and eating this winter.
‘We are reaching the point of no return where support will not get to pensioners in time and they will suffer as a result.’
Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions spokesman Steve Darling said: ‘The new government’s disastrous decision to cut Winter Fuel Payments for millions of vulnerable people risks ruining many pensioners’ Christmas this year.
The Prime Minister said wants to see living standards rise ‘straight away’ as he attempted to sell his ‘plan for change’ today.
The Prime Minister told GMB today that he stood by what he and Chancellor Rachel Reeves had done.
‘These are tough decisions, and I know there are cases on the edges … which are really difficult, but we had to do tough but fair,’ he said.
‘By doing it what we have done is stabilise the economy. I have never said that can be done by Christmas.’
He also said wants to see living standards rise ‘straight away’ as he attempted to sell his ‘plan for change’ today.
Sir Keir made improving living standards a key target as he outlined the ‘next phase’ of his Government on Thursday, saying he wanted to see real household disposable income rise across the country by the next election.
But in an interview with BBC Breakfast, Sir Keir said he wanted to see improvements sooner than that, denying that things would get worse before they got better.
He said: ‘I want people to feel better off straight away – feel better off in the sense of more money in their pocket, feel better off because they’ve got a secure job that they know is guaranteed to give them the money they need.’
Adding that the Government had already given a pay rise to three million of the lowest-paid workers by increasing the minimum wage, Sir Keir said: ‘I want others to feel the difference as quickly as possible.’
Living standards flatlined over the course of the last Parliament, with real household disposable income rising by a record-low 0.3 per cent per year – something Labour regards as a key factor behind the collapse in support for the Conservatives and a potential source of support for populist parties.
But although Sir Keir described his targets as ‘ambitious’ on Thursday, the Resolution Foundation think tank pointed out the figures used to measure living standards – real household disposable income and GDP per capita – had risen in almost every Parliament since 1955.
Mike Brewer, the think tank’s interim chief executive, said: ‘These new milestones are not very stretching. The Government will need to absolutely smash them if they are to truly end stagnation across Britain.’
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I’ve had to be tough. Just ask my mum … I’ve cut her winter fuel payment! Chancellor Rachel Reeves talks difficult decisions, taxpayers’ cash and public sector pay
Ministers thinking of trying to winkle more money out of Rachel Reeves in the coming months might want to ponder her steely approach before they turn up at the Treasury with begging bowls.
For the Chancellor, it can be revealed today, cut her own mum’s winter fuel payment in the Budget – and is happy to defend the decision.
Ms Reeves is set to fire the starting gun next week on the first ‘zero-based’ review of government spending for almost two decades. It will involve a line-by-line examination of every item of Whitehall spending, with ministers ordered to root out waste and ditch projects of questionable value.
In comments designed to demonstrate a break with the profligacy of previous Labour administrations, she says ministers will be ‘getting a grip of government waste and getting value for money for every pound of taxpayers’ money spent’.
She added: ‘In the end, it’s taxpayers’ money that’s being spent on these things. It’s not government money. I’m the Chancellor, but it’s not my money. It’s taxpayers’ money. And I’ll treat that with respect.’
Public sector unions, whose members enjoyed a bumper pay rise after the election in Labour’s first act of largesse, are also put on notice that they should not expect another one unless they embrace reforms designed to boost productivity.
The inflation-busting payouts of the summer were due, Ms Reeves says, to the last government’s failure to be sufficiently clear to the public sector pay bodies about the state of the finances.
‘Going forward, any real-terms increases in public sector pay – so above inflation – has to be accompanied by productivity improvements. That’s the only way it’s affordable,’ she says.
Rachel Reeves is set to fire the starting gun next week on the first ‘zero-based’ review of government spending for almost two decades
It will involve a line-by-line examination of every item of Whitehall spending, with ministers ordered to root out waste and ditch projects of questionable value
She met with Jason Groves on an early train to her adopted city of Leeds where she is taking part in events to mark the annual Small Business Saturday
The spending review, which will fix the Government’s priorities for the rest of this parliament, is the Chancellor’s next big battle. But she has not yet finished fighting the previous one.
Her Budget – the biggest tax-raising event in modern British history – has triggered a gigantic backlash, that is still making noise five weeks after the event.
Farmers are on the march over a raid on inheritance tax that threatens to break up family farms, pensioners are writing angry letters about the loss of the winter fuel payment and, most worryingly for the Chancellor, business is in revolt over her £25 billion raid on National Insurance, warning it will cost jobs and fuel inflation.
And what about that winter fuel decision – did she really cut the payments to her mum and dad?
Yes, is the answer, with the Chancellor arguing that her parents, both former teachers, can afford to lose the money and will benefit from investment in the NHS. ‘I don’t think it’s right that my mum and dad got the winter fuel payment,’ she says. ‘My mum reads your paper, so be careful what you write!
‘She’s on a decent pension and you know, my mum and dad use the NHS as well, which is getting £22.6 billion more over the next couple of years for health spending.’
She reveals that her mother sent her a text message recently to ask her to congratulate Health Secretary Wes Streeting after her appointment for a routine operation on the NHS was brought forward to well within the 18-week waiting target.
Such tributes are apparently not automatic from the Reeves matriarch. ‘You can ask my sister (fellow Cabinet minister Ellie Reeves) as well – we don’t always get positive feedback from our mum!’
Ms Reeves acknowledges that the ‘level of tax paid is really important for business’ but insists that political and economic stability is even more critical.
At times in recent weeks the Chancellor has appeared taken aback by the level of anger her measures have triggered, but she insists she had always expected it
At times in recent weeks the Chancellor has appeared taken aback by the level of anger her measures have triggered, but she insists she had always expected it. ‘If you’re going to raise taxes, then, of course, there are going to be people who are unhappy,’ she says. ‘I understand that.’
She also believes that business leaders will ultimately get over their anger at her tax raid and welcome the ‘stability’ she has brought to the public finances.
And she suggests many would have done the same if they had been doing her job. ‘When chief executives or chief financial officers come into a business and they inherit what we inherited as a government, you have three choices as a business leader. You can either sort of sweep that under the carpet, hope that something turns up. You can say, right, okay, well, I’ll take some action and I’ll come back to it next year, or you can wipe the slate clean on what my predecessor has left me, take some difficult decisions, take the flak for that, but then be able to move on, focus on my plans to turn it around, this business.’
Ms Reeves acknowledges that the ‘level of tax paid is really important for business’ but insists that political and economic stability is even more critical.
‘What happened in the last parliament was interest rates going through the roof, their borrowing costs going through the roof, money in the pockets of their customers being hit, inflation going through the roof,’ she says. ‘That lack of stability was a disaster for business. That’s what businesses told me. That’s why they backed us at the election, because they saw me and they saw this changed Labour Party as the best route to restoring economic stability, and that’s what we’ve done.’
We meet on an early train to her adopted city of Leeds where she is taking part in events to mark the annual Small Business Saturday.
The headlines are dominated by Keir Starmer’s refusal to rule out future tax rises despite the Chancellor’s pledge to the CBI that she was ‘not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes’.
She is happy to repeat the phrase, but adds a qualification on possible future tax rises, saying: ‘I can’t tie my hands in that way, but we’ve moved to annual budgets. I’m not going to be going back in the spring. That’s what the previous government did. They did a Budget and then come back six months later.
‘But I’m never going do a Budget like that again. That’s a reset, once-in-a-parliament moment. It was not the Budget I wanted to deliver, but bringing stability back to the economy and making sure that the public finances are on a firm footing is the number one priority for me.’
Future spending on consultants will be halved, with the Chancellor arguing that it is time to start leaving more of the work to the civil service
‘But I’m never going do a Budget like that again. That’s a reset, once-in-a-parliament moment’, Ms Reeves said
The focus now is on beating anaemic growth forecasts, which she acknowledges are not good enough.
The Chancellor’s war on waste will involve new efficiency targets for all departments. An order has gone out that ‘all non-essential consultancy and comms spending should be cancelled’.
Future spending on consultants will be halved, with the Chancellor arguing that it is time to start leaving more of the work to the civil service.
The Prime Minister was in retreat yesterday after suggesting that too many civil servants are ‘comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline’ – comments which triggered a furious response from the Whitehall Blob.
Ms Reeves, who is married to a senior civil servant, is more diplomatic.
‘It’s about political leadership,’ she says. ‘It’s not a civil service decision not to have a zero-based review for 17 years. That’s a political decision.’
After the Budget, the Chancellor was dubbed ‘Rachel Thieves’ and mercilessly mocked online over some unfortunate creativity with her past CV.
Surely that hurts a bit? After 14 years as an opposition MP, she insists she is ‘happy to take the brickbats’.
