The Prime Minister’s prediction yesterday that his Government “was going to have to be unpopular” on account of withdrawing winter fuel payments from all but the poorest pensioners is coming true sooner than he would have wished. The general secretary of Unite, Sharon Graham, and the head of the TUC, Paul Nowak, have joined the protests along with a number of Sir Keir’s own backbenchers.
With a majority the size of Labour’s, the Prime Minister does not need to worry about getting the measure through the Commons tomorrow — most naysayers will abstain rather than risk losing the party whip — but he should think seriously about the problems that withdrawing the allowance will cause.
He should also reflect that the black hole in the public finances that this cut is intended to help fill would be half as great if the Chancellor had not made the unforced decision to grant pay increases well in excess of inflation to public sector workers, notably NHS staff. Cutting pensioners’ winter fuel payments to pay for NHS pay increases (especially given the lavish pensions doctors enjoy) does not look like such a brave move.
It has been fashionable for many years to criticise the winter fuel payment on the basis that it goes to dukes and rock stars as well as the poor and needy. Certainly they are among the 10 million or so people entitled to it at present, but most of them are not plutocrats and many are just above the threshold that would enable them to claim the allowance.
On the basis of the argument that we should means-test any benefit that Sir Mick Jagger might claim, the universal old age pension would be means-tested too. But there is a reason why universal benefits work: it is that they are easier to understand than means-tested payments. The lucky pensioners who would keep the winter fuel allowance this year may have to fill in a form with over 230 questions to claim it. Is it any wonder that some 880,000 pensioners have not got the pension credit they are entitled to?
Of course, the public finances are genuinely under pressure so this paper proposes an alternative to the status quo: the Government should restrict the winter fuel payments to pensioners aged 75 and over. This would mean paying almost half as many people as at present, 5.4 million, but those claimants are frailer and more vulnerable to cold than the younger cohort of pensioners. It is a compromise that the Government should consider carefully if it really does wish to help pensioners survive the winter.
