Every Excuse Labour Used to Defend Winter Fuel Cuts – Guido Fawkes

IN FULL: Every Excuse Labour Used to Defend Winter Fuel Cuts

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After Starmer announced that he was reviewing the much-hated winter fuel cuts so more pensioners can be eligible for the allowance (still no detail on when a U-turn might actually come in), Guido thought it was worth revisiting the parade of Labour ministers who have spent the last few months defending the cuts using ludicrous justifications:

• Commons leader Lucy Powell said the cuts prevented a “run on the pound”, saying in September: “If we hadn’t taken that action we’d have seen a run on the pound, the economy crashing and the people who pay the heaviest price for that are the poorest.” Eh?
• Rachel Reeves repeated that decision was “difficult but necessary” to address a £22 billion fiscal “black hole” left by the Tories.   About £21 billion short on that…
• Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Labour had “no choice” but to cut the allowance in order to fill the £22 billion black hole inherited from the Tories.
• DWP minister Emma Hardy argued that the cut was justified because there are “plenty of very wealthy pensioners” who do not need the allowance. That excuse evidently didn’t wash…
• Housing minister Matthew Pennycook claimed: “As you know, on taking office, we discovered £22 billion of unfunded spending commitments. We think it’s the right decision to make. We’re not going to water down that policy.” Starmer is now…
• Health secretary Wes Streeting said that despite the cuts, Reeves protecting winter fuel allowance for the poorest pensioners meant that as a whole “pensioners will still be better off this winter than they were last winter, and will be better off next winter further still.”
• Deputy PM Angela Rayner said: “we have had Liz Truss’s disastrous Budget and we have got a £22 billion black hole so it is about choices.”
• Transport secretary Heidi Alexander claimed the cuts were needed because “we simply couldn’t risk another repeat of the sort of chaos we saw under the Liz Truss government with her reckless and cavalier approach to managing the public finances.”

Who knows what excuses ministers will come up with for the U-turn…