Labour’s past research on winter fuel payments has come back to haunt Keir Starmer.
MPs will be voting on the government’s plan to restrict winter fuel allowances to only the most vulnerable pensioners tomorrow.
It means around 10 million elderly people could lose out on the payment of up to £300, with just those on pension credit still eligible for help this winter.
It’s a controversial proposal which has left up to 50 Labour MPs considering rebelling against the government, or abstaining from the vote.
Research from Labour in 2017 – when then PM Theresa May was considering reducing the winter fuel payment herself, while Starmer was in the shadow cabinet – found that thousands of pensioners could die if the proposal went ahead.
It said the Conservative plan would increase excess deaths by 3,850 in the coming winter, and declared it was the “single biggest attack on pensioners in a generation in our country”.
The research, unearthed by the Daily Mail, said: “Since the introduction of the winter fuel payment by Labour in 1997, allowing for significant variation in winter weather, deaths among the elderly have fallen from around 34,000 to 24,000.
“Half of the almost 10,000 decrease in so-called ‘excess winter deaths’ – the rise in mortality that occurs each winter – between 2000 and 2012 was due to the introduction of the winter fuel allowance.”
The Tories ended up dropping the proposal.
A government spokesperson told the Daily Mail that it does “not recognise these figures” from 2017.
They added: “We are committed to supporting pensioners through the triple lock, which means that over 12 million pensioners will see their state pensions increase by almost £1,000 over the next five years.
“Given the dire state of the public finances we have inherited, it’s right that we target support to those who need it most.
“Over a million pensioners will continue to receive the winter fuel payment, while many others will also benefit from the £150 warm home discount from October.”
Home Office minister Diana Johnson told broadcasters this morning that it was a “tough” decision, that no one wanted to see go through – but that it was necessary to fill the ″£22bn black hole” in government finances.
Starmer also told the BBC on Sunday that he had accepted his government was “going to have to be unpopular” over the move.
