Axing winter fuel payment for millions 'worse' than scrapping triple lock, says ex-pensions minister

Scrapping the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners is worse than ditching the triple lock and risks pushing people into “real hardship”, a former pensions minister has said.

Baroness Altmann said Chancellor Rachel Reeves' decision to scrap the payments for nearly 10 million older people was the “wrong political choice”. Ms Reeves told MPs last month she was "angry" at having to make the cut as she blasted the Tories for leaving a £22billion 'black hole' in the public finances.

Labour has vowed to protect the triple lock, a mechanism where the state pension rises in line with whatever is highest out of inflation, average earnings, or 2.5%. But Baroness Altmann, who was pensions minister under David Cameron and now sits in the Lords, said cutting the winter fuel payment would

“Pensioners are not all well off and many struggle to make ends meet, living frugally on far less than most younger people,” she told the Telegraph.

“I do hope the Government will recognise that this is not right, it will cause real hardship and needs to be urgently reconsidered. Saving the £1.4 billion this year by making pensioners pay for the fiscal overspend is a political choice, and in my view it is the wrong one.”

The winter fuel payment is worth up to £300, although it was hiked to up to £600 in recent years due to the cost of living crisis. The benefit had been available to everyone over the state pension age but it will only be awarded to those eligible for Pension Credit or other means-tested benefits.

This winter, the number of older people now eligible will fall from 11.4million to just 1.5million. Baroness Altmann claimed that the raid was equivalent to a 3.3% cut in their pensions for the oldest claimants, while those under 80 will see a 2.2% fall in the money they are paid.

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK said: “We strongly agree with Baroness Altmann that means-testing Winter Fuel Payment is the wrong policy choice, and we take this view because we know that millions of older people who depend on the extra £200 or £300 will struggle to stay warm this winter without it.

"At Age UK we'll do all we can to encourage better take up of Pension Credit, but history suggests it will be a real uphill battle and there's not a lot of time. In addition, a million or more older people who badly need the money are certain to lose out because their modest incomes are just a few pounds too high to allow them to receive it, or they face unavoidably high bills due to serious ill health."

Dennis Reid, from the Silver Voices campaign group, said: "Almost everyone involved with older people, charities, campaign groups and professionals agree that the decision to scrap winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners is wrong-headed and cruel.

"We have written to every individual MP asking them to lobby the Chancellor to get this policy reversed and the three main petitions seeking a U-turn (including ours) now have a combined total of over half a million signatures, within a week. Restricting energy support to those on pension credit only is brutal, and will plunge millions into fuel poverty this winter."

Last week, Deputy PM Angela Rayner urged people to check if they were still eligible for the allowance - and admitted the Government was having to make "really difficult choices". She said "What the Chancellor set out on the winter fuel allowance was around Pension Credit. There's thousands of people who are eligible for Pension Credit that are not currently receiving it.

"So my plea to people who are listening it to check out whether you're eligible for Pension Credit that won't and those people will continue to get the winter fuel payment."