Labour has ‘no choice’ about cutting winter fuel payments, business secretary says – UK politics live

Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, is the clear winner in the latest ConservativeHome survey of Tory members into how well they think shadow cabinet ministers are peforming. She has a net approval rating of +49.9, well ahead of two of her rivals in the leadership contest, James Cleverly on +25.9 and Tom Tugendhat on +25.7.

Robert Jenrick, who is now the bookmakers’ favourite in the Tory leadership contest, is not included, because he is not in the shadow cabinet. But other surveys suggest Badenoch is more popular with Tory members than he is.

In an interview with the Today programme this morning Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, said he accepted there was a case for reform of the winter fuel allowance. But he suggested the means-testing scheme should be made more generous. He said:

I would just ask the government not to rule out the possibility of a higher threshold, or indeed a taper of winter fuel allowance.

Because our experience in Greater Manchester is that pensioners are often reluctant to apply for the pension credit [which they will have to, under the government’s plan, to continue to receive the winter fuel payment] for a number of reasons.

And, actually, the threshold at which you get it is pretty low anyway.

And so … I would ask them not to rule out that possible extra help for pensioners who are right at that cliff edge.

The government has said it is not considering how to make the winter fuel payments means-testing mechanism more generous.

In his LBC interview Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, also refused to guarantee that the government would not try to limit bus passes for free travel for pensioners.

He said there were “no plans” to get rid of freedom passes for pensioners in London.

When the presenter, Nick Ferrari, put it to him that he was not guaranteeing that national bus passes for pensioners would stay, Reynolds replied:

I’d say, please don’t speculate on any of this, wait til [the budget] …

You have to wait to a budget for all the decisions within that. But I think, frankly, at the minute what we’re seeing is people causing undue concern, just literally saying anything they know the answer from the government will be. You’ve got a budget in a few weeks time, we don’t comment on what will be [in it].

Reynolds seemed to be referring to a Telegraph story saying Labour was refusing to rule out scrapping bus passes for some pensioners. It says:

Lord Hendy, the rail minister, was asked on Monday to promise the benefit would not be restricted to the poorest pensioners.

He played down the likelihood of a change but said given the state of the public finances he could not offer a “concrete commitment for all time”.

The comments are likely to fuel speculation that the government could at some point decide that not all pensioners should get free bus passes …

Helen Whateley, the shadow transport secretary, said: “Not content with cutting pensioners’ winter fuel payments, Labour have now thrown doubt on the status of their bus passes too.”

In an interview with Sky News this morning Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, was slightly evasive when asked if he could guarantee that no pensioner would die of cold as a result of the cut to winter fuel payments.

When Kay Burley first asked the question, Reynolds replied: “No-one should die of cold in this country.”

Burley claimed he had not answered her question, and she asked again for a guarantee. Reynolds replied:

I can guarantee we’re doing everything we can to make sure that not only the state pension is higher and everyone is better off but that support is targeted where it needs to be.

An hour or so later, when Nick Robinson tried a version of the same question on the Today programme, asking if Reynolds accepted there was a real danger of some pensioners dying of cold this winter under Labour, the minister was more robust. Reynolds replied:

No. We are making sure, first of all, that we can reassure people by saying that the state pension this year is higher than last winter, and energy bills are lower than last winter, and our commitment to the triple lock means that throughout this parliament pensions will be better off. [See 9.17am.]

And also, alongside that, we’re targeting support at the people who need it the most, not just making sure people who are eligible for pension credit continue to receive winter fuel payments, but the people who are eligible for pension credit itself, and they’re not getting it, are going to get it under our plans to drive that up.

And then there are other things, the household support fund, the warm homes discount as part of that.

Yesterday the Daily Mail splashed on a report pointing out that, when the Tories proposed means-testing the winter fuel payments in their 2017 manifesto, Labour claimed that would increase excess pensioner winter deaths by 4,000 a year.

This morning the Office for National Statistics has published a slew of labour market figures, including the figures showing the rate at which average earnings rose in the three months to July (Q2, the second quarter of the year). This is the figure that will be used to set the state pension increase next year, because under the triple lock the rise is indexed to earnings, prices or 2.5%, whichever is highest, and this year the earnings figure is the highest.

Graeme Wearden has more on the business live blog. He explains:

The latest UK labour market statistics, just released, show that total pay (including bonuses) rose by 4% in the May-July quarter.

And under the UK’s triple-lock pension pledge, that indicates that the new state pension should also rise by 4% next year.

That would lift the new state pension – currently £221.20 per week – up to around £230 per week, an increase of almost £9 a week from next April.

On an annual basis, it would increase the new state pension from £11,502.40 per year to £11,962 per year, an increase of £460 a year.

The final decision on the state pension will be taken by the secretary of state for work and pensions, Liz Kendall, before October’s budget. But chancellor Rachel Reeves has already pledged the government’s backing of the triple lock until the end of this parliament.

The Telegraph has headlined this as “State pension to rise by just £8.85 per week”, which is a good example of a ‘glass half empty’ take, but which also illustrates the extent to which pensioners are doing a lot better than they were in 1999, when the weekly pension went up by just 75p per week.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has argued that the penion increases delivered by the triple lock are one reason why it’s acceptable to remove the winter fuel allowance (worth up to £300 per household) from most pensioners. In her Telegraph article today, she says:

We are delivering our manifesto promise to protect the triple lock, so we can put more money in pensioners’ pockets each and every year. The full state pension alone will be worth around £1,700 more by the time of the next election.

Good morning. Today will be a difficult day for the Labour party, which is asking its MPs to vote this afternoon to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it is important to keep a sense of proportion, and a good indicator of that is the way lobby journalists are having to redefine the word “rebel”. In the Tory Brexit days, and before, a rebel was an MP voting against their government. But today very, very few Labour MPs are expected to do that (the unusually harsh sanctions imposed on the seven Labour backbenchers who voted against the king’s speech have not gone unnoticed), and reporters on rebel count today will largely being trying to work out how many Labour MPs are deliberately abstaining.

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, has been doing a media round this morning defending the government’s decision. Speaking on Sky News this morning, he claimed the government had “no choice”. He told the programme:

We have no choice … The nature of what we’ve inherited and the challenges that that presented required some immediate decisions.

It is clear what he meant (he was blaming the decision on the budget legacy left by the Tories), but “no choice” is not technically right, and it clashes with the language Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is using in a Daily Telegraph article today about the move. She describes it as the “right choice”. She explains:

This Labour government was elected on a clear mandate of change. That change can only happen by fixing the foundations of our economy. That is why economic stability was the first step in our manifesto, because I know, like every family and business knows, prosperity can only happen on the bedrock of strong public finances.

Delivering that change means difficult decisions, including cancelling road projects that were not properly funded, reviewing the new hospital programme to deliver a realistic plan, and targeting winter fuel payments to the most in need. These were not choices I wanted to make nor expected to make, but they were the right choice to deliver our promise of economic stability. And with that stability we can deliver a Britain that is better off. That is what drives my politics and the decisions I take in government every single day.

I will post more from Reynolds’ interview round shortly.

The vote on winter fuel payments will come at around 2pm, or later if there are urgent questions or statements in the Commons. There is another vote this afternoon which is far less consequential, and perhaps irrelevant to most pensioners, but of some interest to those of us following the Tory leadership contest. And Keir Starmer is speaking to the TUC this morning, so it’s a busy news day.

Here is the agenda.

11am: Keir Starmer speaks at the TUC conference.

11.30am: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Noon: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, holds a press conference with Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, who is visiting London.

After 12.30pm: MPs begin the debate on means-testing the winter fuel payment. The debate will last 90 minutes, with the vote immediately afterwards.

2.30pm: Tim Davie, the BBC director general, and Samir Shah, the BBC chair, give evidence to the Lords communications and digital committee.

5pm: The results of the second round of voting in the Tory leadership contest are due to be announced.

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