The new Labour Party government is stripping winter fuel payments from 1.6 million pensioners living in poverty this winter. This is according to a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) minister – showing that Labour knew this – but are ploughing ahead anyway.
Winter fuel payments cut: hitting the poorest households
Previously, charity Age UK revealed that Labour’s callous winter fuel payments cut would deny 1.6 million pensioners in poverty the vital benefit this winter.
As the Canary has already pointed out, this will be right as energy bills increase. This is because regulator Ofgem is raising the energy price cap from 1 October.
Now, the DWP’s own figures corroborate this estimate exactly – showing that the Labour government knew this all along.
Specifically, the DWP detailed that:
- 1.6 million pensioners living in relative poverty after housing costs – 84% – were not claiming Pension Credits.
- 1.2 million pensioners living in absolute poverty after housing costs – 85% – were not claiming them.
DWP minister Emma Reynolds disclosed the information in response to two written questions from MPs. The first was from Labour MP for Lowestoft Jess Asato. She tabled the question on 30 August. Of course, this was a little under two weeks before she voted with the government to strip pensioners of it.
The second was from former DWP boss Mel Stride. Obviously, this was ironic, given that during his time overseeing the department, he’d also put forward a sweep of similarly regressive reform proposals. Nonetheless, Stride submitted his question a few days after Asato, at the start of September.
As Reynolds explained in her response to the winter fuel payments cut question:
A household is in relative poverty if its income is less than 60 per cent of the median household income in a given financial year. A household is in absolute poverty if its income is less than 60% of median household income in 2010/11, uprated by inflation.
However, Age UK’s estimates already showed it’s worse than this. Its calculations went further than the DWP’s. Crucially, it identified a further 900,000 older people living no more than £55 a week above the relative poverty line who would also lose the benefit.
Pension Credit uptake falling far short
Of course, despite the fact that by the DWP’s own reckoning, this group of 2.8 million pensioners are living in poverty, many still won’t be eligible for Pension Credits. By its own estimates again, it calculated that 880,000 households with pensioners could claim this, but currently aren’t.
Largely, this is because either they are unaware they’re eligible, or due to the complexity of applying for it – given the application form has over 240 questions.
And so far, the government’s drive to increase uptake in Pension Credits has barely made a dent on this. Reynolds boasted in another response that its Pension Credit campaign had caused a 115% surge in applications. Specifically, this was in the five weeks after it launched this, compared to the five weeks prior to it.
However, this equated to just 38,500 new claims. This is around 4% of the 880,000 it said are eligible in the wake of the winter fuel payments cut, but not yet claiming it. In other words, well over 800,000 households who should get Pension Credits – and by extension, the winter fuel payments – won’t now receive it this winter.
That’s also before taking into account the process times for new claims. Notably, the DWP has been telling people it could take up to nine weeks to even process these new applications.
Yet, the DWP newly confirmed figures now show the winter fuel payments cut will actually hit many more pensioners not able to claim Pension Credits, but also living in poverty.
1.6 million: a reoccurring figure
Naturally, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The DWP’s Friday night publication of the department’s winter fuel payments cut Equality Analysis also exposed the disproportionate impact of the cut on other marginalised groups.
Not only is Labour slashing the payment to 1.6 million pensioners in poverty, but the same number of disabled people will also lose out. This was 71% of disabled pensioners entitled to the benefit. As well as this, the analysis revealed that the cut would hit women more than men. Approximately 5.2 million women will lose the winter fuel payments, to 4.8 million men this winter.
Of course, multiple pensioner and disability rights charities have been highlighting the devastating toll since chancellor Rachel Reeves announced this. Now however, this is more proof that the Labour government will have been aware of all this beforehand.
In other words, the new government has readily thrown poor and disabled pensioners under the bus. DWP minister Reynolds’ revelations about winter fuel payments should be damning. However, it’s unlikely to stop Starmer and co in their tracks. After all, it’s nothing they didn’t already know, and choose to deliberately ignore anyway.
Featured image via the Canary
