How Labour can win back pensioners angry over winter fuel payment cut

Criticism of Labour’s winter fuel payment cut has been widespread. I too have expressed strong reservations around the prudence of removing this payment from most pensioners at such short notice; however, while the timing is questionable, many of the headline-grabbing, negative responses are insincere.

Conservative ministers who floated cutting the payment only a few years ago but are now turning on Chancellor Rachel Reeves are being hypocritical; and it’s their government’s legacy of financial ineptitude which has forced Labour into making this tough decision. Their protestations ring hollow.

Some Labour voices have also seized the opportunity to advance personal gripes with the leadership, an act somewhat undermined by a quick glance at their voting records on this issue.

My own opposition does not fall under the category of political manoeuvring. In fact, I sympathise with some of the thinking behind the cut, and believe that reform was well overdue.

Backed by Age UK and energy companies

Roughly a quarter of pensioners live in wealthy households and many more find the payment unnecessary or, to put it more bluntly, a waste of public money. My primary concerns with the change are twofold: tying eligibility to claiming pension credit is flawed – due to the woefully low uptake of this benefit – and even if uptake were to substantially increase, the cut-off is so low it means many pensioners who feel the bite of poverty do not qualify.

The long-term solution is a social energy tariff, a targeted discount deal that acts as a safety net for all households struggling to afford their bills. This is not a new idea. It has been floated by a variety of organisations, including Age UK, and has even received backing from the energy companies.

Much like the reformed winter fuel payment, it would be means-tested to ensure it only goes to those who need it, but could be claimed by all lower income households, vastly extending eligibility to protect the UK’s most vulnerable individuals and families.

Huge effect on fuel poverty

Furthermore, the latest research indicates that there are feasible paths to establishing new eligibility criteria which could allow for automatic enrolment, thereby broadening the scope of payments to include the many eligible pensioners who do not claim pension credit.

Pessimists will argue that the data-linkage needed will take many years to establish. But in the information age, with the advent of AI, connecting data held by HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the energy companies is not only achievable, it is already a reality: government did something just like this with the warm home discount.

An analysis by Age UK this year showed that fuel poverty could have been reduced by around 65 per cent if the government had implemented a social energy tariff for the most vulnerable energy users. This could have lifted over two million households out of fuel poverty; action on this issue is well overdue.

The argument for a tariff should now, in my view, supersede the debate around the cut. The parliamentary Labour party has set a course and is unlikely to consider U-turns at this early juncture. However, it is looking for new ways to restore stability in Britain, and the tariff offers poorer families just that – resilience against energy price shocks, now and in the future.

George Foulkes is a life peer and a former Labour MP