Winter fuel cut vote will test Sir Keir Starmer’s authority
Sir Keir Starmer warned during the election campaign of the need for “tough decisions”, but carefully avoided setting out where the axe would fall.
Now it’s clear who will be losing out – starting with most pensioners losing winter fuel payments worth up to £300 – unease is bubbling under the surface.
Politics live: Number 10 not ‘softening’ winter fuel payment cut
There is no doubt the government will win Tuesday’s vote as they have a huge majority of 174.
But the number of abstentions – or MPs who cannot face voting for it – especially if they number dozens, will test the prime minister’s authority and signal whether his backbenchers have the stomach for more of these cuts.
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Over the summer, Labour MPs have seen their inboxes fill up with pensioners and their families angry that those who rely on the payments fear they will face a cold winter in hardship.
The benefit will be restricted, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in July, to those who claim pension credit, and no longer given to the 10 million people aged over 66 who don’t.
She told MPs at a meeting tonight that it was a difficult decision, and she “wasn’t immune to the arguments against it”, but that sticking to it was a question of economic credibility.
Government sources claimed she had won the argument that “‘no one likes it, but we have to do it”.
Pensioners, she said, could blame the Conservatives for leaving a financial black hole.
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Reeves defends fuel payment cuts
The problem is that 880,000 pensioners who are eligible for this top-up do not claim it, so they will lose out despite being the poorest – including some on just £13,000 a year.
The government has run a campaign aimed at increasing the uptake, but the payments will go straight away.
Campaigners – pensioners have vocal campaign groups on their side – also say the million or so people just above the threshold will also struggle.
Dozens of Labour MPs are weighing up whether they can vote for the measure, which will be a three-line whip. Some feel the £1.5bn saving will have a painful price.
MP for York Central Rachel Maskell, who told Sky News she would abstain, said the swift timing of the vote, and lack of assessment of its impact, has left many concerned – not just those on the left sceptical about Sir Keir’s leadership.
A House of Lords committee which scrutinises secondary legislation said it had been introduced without proper evidence of its impact.
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Streeting ‘not remotely happy’ about cutting winter fuel payments
A former member of the shadow cabinet, who will be reluctantly voting for the measure, told me he expected the chancellor to be forced to make changes in the run-up to the budget.
In an interview this weekend, Sir Keir stood firm, saying there would be no change in course – as well as further difficult decisions coming down the track.
He will head to Brighton in the morning in a big moment for an incoming Labour prime minister – addressing the Trades Union Congress (TUC) annual conference.
He will be braced for criticism, with major union leaders including Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, and head of the TUC, Paul Novak, piling the pressure on and saying he should U-turn.
Sir Keir knows the cut will get through parliament and has shown he can be ruthless, having withdrawn the party whip from MPs who voted to axe the two-child benefit cap.
But Labour MPs who back the measure through gritted teeth, and feel it’s had too high a price, will be harder to win over next time.
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Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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