‘Despicable’: 95k Bucks pensioners to lose winter fuel payments under Labour

Some 95,000 pensioners in Buckinghamshire will lose their winter fuel payments under Labour, Bucks Council has said.

The deputy leader of the Conservative-led unitary authority Steve Broadbent said it was ‘despicable’ that the new government planned to scrap the payments of £200 or £300 to all but the poorest pensioners this winter.

He made the comments during a full meeting of the council on Wednesday, September 18, afternoon in which Tory councillors passed a motion to say they were ‘appalled’ at Labour’s plans, which they claim will force many Bucks pensioners to choose between ‘eating or heating’ this winter.

The motion called for the council leader Martin Tett to ask the government to immediately reinstate the winter fuel allowance and to write to all of Buckinghamshire’s MPs to explain the council’s ‘deep concerns’ over Labour’s plans.

It also endorsed the council’s campaign to encourage all eligible pensioners to apply for pension credit and other benefits that would make them eligible for winter fuel payments before any deadline.

Introducing the motion, Cllr Broadbent said that around 95,000 pensioners in Bucks would have their winter fuel payments taken away from them. He said: “In any civilised society, to balance your payments to the members of your paymaster unions on the frozen backs of our pensioners is unforgiveable, is despicable.”

The councillor added: “We need to let government know that pensioners in Buckinghamshire will suffer by this decision. They made a cold, calculating decision that should not be allowed.”

Labour councillor Robin Stuchbury told the meeting it was ‘telling’ that Buckinghamshire’s Tory councillors had put forward a motion criticising the current government’s policies affecting vulnerable groups but had not done so under previous Conservative administrations. He said: “For example, when we had the situation where 75 per cent of local government money was cut and rough sleeping was up, nothing was done. Not motion was ever needed because there was a Conservative government.”

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat councillor Anja Schaefer told the meeting that Cllr Broadbent had ‘discovered his social principles’ and that her party was against Labour’s plans. She added: “We are very concerned that Buckinghamshire residents now need to be helped, those who are eligible, to claim for pension credit to mitigate the impact this is having on them.”

Labour has said that taking winter fuel payments away from millions of pensioners will save around £1.5 billion a year.

Amid criticism from the opposition parties, but also unions and charities, the prime minister Keir Starmer has defended restricting winter fuel payments and said his Labour government would make the ‘difficult decisions’ that previous Conservative administrations had ‘run away’ from.

Last week, the MPs for Wycombe, Emma Reynolds, and Aylesbury, Laura Kyrke-Smith, were among the Labour bloc in the House of Commons which successfully voted down an attempt to block limiting winter fuel payments.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Chesham and Amersham Sarah Green voted to block Labour’s plans, along with the Conservative MP for Beaconsfield Joy Morrissey and her Tory colleague for Mid Buckinghamshire, Greg Smith.

Winter fuel payments, which are normally made from November, will now only be available to people over the current state pension age of 66 who are receiving pension credit or a limited number of other benefits.

Bucks Council says it has predicted that up to 5,000 pensioners in the county who are eligible are not claiming the benefit and could be ‘missing out on benefits up to £3,900 per year’.

More information is available here: https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/campaign/could-you-get-pension-credit/#:~:text=From%20September%202024%20the%20previous,limited%20number%20of%20other%20benefits).