Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham (centre) on the winter fuel cuts protest (Picture: Guy Smallman)
Around 250 pensioners, Unite union members and others protested outside Parliament on Monday in fury at the Labour government’s cuts to the winter fuel payment.
“We didn’t vote for this,” pensioner Anne from Newcastle told Socialist Worker. “When Labour promised change, I didn’t think it meant change for the worse.
“It means people will freeze to death this winter because they are too poor to warm their homes.”
Bob from Essex quipped, “Perhaps that’s why Keir Starmer is grabbing all those suits—he’s going to give us all extra clothes to keep warm when we can’t afford to turn on the heating.”
Labour forced a vote through parliament last month on its plans to remove winter fuel payments. They are presently worth £200 to £300 for the whole winter.
But ministers are taking them away from older people in England and Wales who are not on pension credit, or a handful of other entitlements. Pensioners on as little as £220 per week will lose the payment this year.
Three days after the vote the government had to publish a Department for Work and Pensions “equality analysis” of the cut’s impact.
It shows 90 percent of pensioners aged between 66 and 79, and eight out of ten over-80s, would lose their allowance.
The analysis also revealed that 1.6 million disabled people will lose their entitlement, despite their often-greater dependence on heating their homes.
Some 880,000 pensioners are entitled to pension credit but do not claim the benefit. Only 100,000 are expected to sign up to it because of a new government campaign, meaning 780,000 pensioners on low incomes will continue to miss out.
Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, told protesters, “Less than a hundred days ago Labour was elected to stop the society of billionaires and food banks. We voted Labour not for better managers but for lasting change.
“Yes, the Tories are to blame but Labour is in government and these choices are Labour choices that are being made. I do not understand how a Labour government can cut the winter fuel allowance and leave the super-rich totally untouched. Labour shame on you.”
John McDonnell was suspended as a Labour MP for voting against the leadership over cuts. He said, “I wasn’t elected to impoverish our own constituents but to protect them. That’s what Labour MPs are supposed to do isn’t it?”
The protest was initiated by the National Pensioners Convention. It was backed by Unite, Age UK, Disability Rights UK, Independent Age, the Waspi women’s pension rights campaign, and Fuel Poverty Action.
Labour is determined to stick to the cuts to show to the financial markets that it will be ruthless in holding down workers’ living standards. The budget on 30 October will see another attempt by chancellor Rachel Reeves and Starmer to prove their pro-boss credentials.
Starmer has allowed the gas and electricity firms to raise prices by over 10 percent this month.
Yet 28 energy companies have made a staggering £457 billion in profits since the start of the energy crisis with £61 billion posted in profits this year alone. Bills are 65 percent higher than in 2020 and over 6.5 million people live in fuel poverty.
To save the winter fuel payment, campaigners will have to be more militant and unions have to use all their strength to beat back Labour’s austerity plans.
At least 100,000 children have been forced into poverty since Labour took office, thanks to the two-child benefit cap. That’s the shocking conclusion of new data released by the Child Poverty Action Group charity.
Charity boss Alison Garnham said, “The clock is ticking while child poverty rises—and the two-child limit is the key driver of the increase. Scrapping it is the most cost-effective way to stop more kids being pulled into poverty on the government’s watch.”
Labour has so far resisted pressure to abolish the cap, introduced by former Tory chancellor George Osborne.
The party even suspended seven MPs who voted for it to be abolished in a parliamentary debate in the summer.
Reports suggest it would cost the government just £2.5 billion a year to abolish the cap—a fraction of what it could raise if it levied a wealth tax on millionaires.
Labour’s promise of a “National Care Service” has so far come to nothing. And health secretary Wes Streeting has said next to nothing on the issue since taking office.
But the death toll resulting from the collapse of social care continues to rise.
Two coroners recently sent reports to Streeting’s department after hospitals were unable to discharge patients. That meant seriously ill people were kept in ambulances rather than being treated by doctors.
In both cases, coroners said that the delays had been a “contributing factor” in their deaths.
Hospices warn they are facing “unsustainable” financial pressures as they reveal they are having to rely on more revenue from charity shops than NHS funding. Most hospices, which provide end of life care for millions of people, are charities.
The group Hospice UK said second-hand shops would have to sell 5,375 pairs of jeans to fund a palliative care nurse for a year and a 43,000 blouses to cover a bed for a patient for the same period.
At least a fifth of hospice organisations said they were being forced to cut their services this year. Labour should make all end of life care part of the NHS—and fund it properly.
Keir Starmer’s election pledge to bring back the “family doctor” now won’t happen because there are too few GPs.
The British Medical Journal last month predicted that doctors will carry out just 50 percent of all consultations.
Now researchers Frontier Economics reports that patients will be pushed towards other health professionals, such as a nurse, physiotherapist or pharmacist, instead.
The group said Labour should start “preparing” people for the change now. Cutting costs by replacing doctors with cheaper staff will cost lives.
Are wealthy lobby groups about to score a victory over Labour’s plan to charge VAT on private school fees?
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in a speech in July that the tax would be levied on fees from 1 January 2025. But since then elite schools and the rich have been trying to obstruct the process, and even issuing legal challenges.
When journalists recently asked the Treasury to confirm the tax’s starting date, the department would only say, “as soon as possible”. The Treasury has already “reconsidered” other parts of Labour’s manifesto—including scrapping non‑dom tax status used by billionaires
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