It shows how shocking Keir Starmer’s premiership already is when Rishi Sunak, however temporarily at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), looks like a competent politician. Not least is his performance over the winter fuel payments cut and where the impact assessment for these was.
But that’s the whole trap of the two party system. The Labour Party right and the Tories cosplay as caring forces while they are in opposition.
Winter fuel payments: “publish the impact assessment”
Sunak opened the session:
Mr Speaker yesterday Labour MPs voted to remove the winter fuel payment from over 10 million British pensioners including those with just £13,000 of income. With that decision debated and made it’s now important that the House understands the full consequences of the government’s choice. So can I very specifically ask the prime minister, will he now publish the impact assessment before the House rises?
In response, Starmer ignored the question (to note, like Sunak used to). Instead he went on about the £22bn ‘black hole’ that could be sorted through taxing the super rich:
Mr Speaker the fact of the matter is this. They left a £22bn black hole… Because of the tough decisions we’re making to stabilse the economy we can make sure that the triple lock shows that increases in pensions will outstrip any loss of payment
Hold on, if pensions are going to rise to make up for the winter fuel payment cut anyway, how is the government filling the ‘black hole’?
Sunak said:
But this has got nothing to do with the public finances. His own Chancellor just this morning…admitted that she would prefer it if this policy didn’t even raise any money… Obviously the government would not have this decision without an impact analysis… So I ask very simply again, why won’t he publish the assessment now?
Again, Starmer ignored both the question of how this makes sense on his own terms of saving money and whether he’d publish the assessment:
Mr Speaker I remember the days when the Conservatives were concerned about balancing the books
Sunak responded:
We know why he’s hiding the impact assessment. The Labour Party’s own previous analysis claimed that this policy could cause 3,850 deaths. So are the numbers in his impact assessment higher or lower than that?
Labour’s analysis from 2017 estimated that 3,850 pensioners could die because of the then Conservative plans to cut the winter fuel payment. The report warned:
Since the introduction of the winter fuel payment by Labour in 1997, allowing for significant variation in winter weather, deaths among the elderly have fallen from around 34,000 to 24,000.
Half of the almost 10,000 decrease in so-called ‘excess winter deaths’ – the rise in mortality that occurs each winter – between 2000 and 2012 was due to the introduction of the winter fuel allowance.
Starmer then sidestepped the prospect of pensioners unnecessarily dying and again made the claim pensioners will have more money and that he is somehow ‘stabilising’ the economy:
We’re making this decision to stabilise the economy
The taxpayer heats MPs second homes
Both Labour and Tory MPs claim benefits to heat their second homes, despite receiving £91,346 in pay and other benefits.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves herself claimed £3,700 from the taxpayer to heat her second home in London in the past five years, while her and Starmer cut the winter fuel payment.
Tory MPs Suella Braverman and James Cleverly, meanwhile, each claimed over £7,000 to heat their second homes from April 2017 to September 2022.
One particularly shameless former Tory MP (even by these standards), Bim Afolami, claimed huge expenses for a second home and heating bills, despite owning a grade II listed house that’s a 26 minute commute away.
Starmer refuses to rule out council tax rises
Later in PMQs, Conservative MP Louie French asked:
Following Labour’s disgraceful political decision to scrap winter fuel payments… will the prime minister today rule out scrapping concessionary travel fares and council tax discounts which also help millions of pensioners across the UK, yes or no?
Starmer didn’t rule out the further cuts:
As he knows very well, I’m not going to preempt the budget
Featured image via The i paper – YouTube
