Yesterday in Prime Minister’s Questions, the Prime Minister responded to a planted question that Labour would ‘make the Winter Fuel Payment available to more people’.
Cue cheers from the Labour benches – and for good reason! Reports have been trickling out that Labour MPs are pushing against Starmer and Reeves.
I applaud them. It’s tough to stand against your own government. I did it when George Osborne tried to impose VAT on caravans. We succeeded in forcing a u-turn by quietly telling the government, ‘Up with this we will not put’.
But words aren’t enough.
Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer chose to make the first act of their government, the first Labour government in fourteen years, to axe the winter fuel payment for over 20,000 people in Beverley and Holderness. 10 million pensioners across our country lost out.
So a glib remark at Prime Minister’s Questions designed to elicit a cheer from his own side won’t cut it with me.
I’ve spoken to pensioners who’ve missed out, pensioners in care homes, pensioners in assisted living, children and grandchildren who are concerned.
And those people don’t want to see tinkering round the edges. They want to see the cut scrapped.
1,181 people in Beverley and Holderness didn’t sign my petition to see the cut-off change by a few pounds a week.
I want to see the Prime Minister apologise to the elderly who, despite evidence provided by his OWN PARTY suggesting that thousands of pensioners would die, cut this vital benefit.
I want to see the Prime Minister apologise to those who were admitted to A&E.
And I want to see a u-turn – and that’s what I’ll be arguing for.
