Tory MPs calling for winter fuel payment to be reversed ahead of the budget (Image: Getty)
Campaigners have slammed Rachel Reeves’ failure to reference her “cruel” decision to axe the winter fuel payment in today's Budget as “insulting and disdainful”.
The Chancellor did not mention Labour’s move to axe the up to ￡300 lifeline from around 10 million pensioners.
Dennis Reed, director of the over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, said: “It was insulting and disdainful for the Chancellor to make no mention whatsoever of the cruel decision to strip 10 million older people of their winter fuel payment in her budget speech.
“She brought in no mitigating measures to lessen the harm to the health of pensioners on low incomes this winter and any excess deaths caused by this decision will be rightly placed at the Government’s door.”
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Ms Reeves reiterated the Government’s commitment to the pension triple lock, telling the Commons the basic and new state pension will rise by 4.1% in 2025-26.
The increase will see the weekly benefit rise to ￡230.30 for the full new flat-rate state pension. However, with income thresholds set to remain frozen, an individual receiving just the state pension will be taxed on their income from 2027.
The Chancellor told the Commons: “The pension credit standard minimum guarantee will also rise by 4.1%, from around ￡11,400 per year to around ￡11,850 for a single pensioner.”
Joanna Elson, Independent Age Chief Executive, called the Budget a “mixed bag” for older people in financial strain.
She said: “There were some welcome announcements from the UK Government including the continuation of the Triple Lock, changes to the earnings limit for Carers Allowance, investment in Discretionary Housing Payment and an extension to the Household Support Fund. All of these have the potential to help older people in financial hardship.
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"However, many older people living on low incomes will be incredibly concerned that the UK Government is going full steam ahead with plans to means test the winter fuel payment. At the very least, this change shouldn’t be made until pension credit take-up is substantially increased.”
Up to 970,000 eligible older people could be missing out on pension credit but are not receiving it, figures have shown.
They will lose the winter fuel payment despite living on a low income.
Ms Elson said: “This will have a devastating impact on older people in financial hardship across the country.”
Unite Union also called Ms Reeves’ failure to reverse the axing of the winter fuel allowance as “disappointing”.
Its general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government has tied itself in knots in picking the pockets of pensioners, cutting the winter fuel payment while the mega wealthy remain virtually untouched. That is unfair and simply wrong. This issue will not go away as winter approaches and Unite will be leading the challenge for it to be reversed."
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Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK said: "Nothing in the Budget changes the plight of the four in five pensioners on low and modest incomes set to lose their winter fuel payment this year when they simply cannot afford to do so, and that’s a massive disappointment.
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"The Government could have brought forward measures to safeguard these older people but chose not to, despite compelling evidence showing how severely as many as two and half million in this position will be hit.
"It comes to something when the best policy option older people on tight budgets now have left is to hope and pray for a mild winter."
She added: "The Government’s cut to Winter Fuel Payment is coming in too quickly and hitting too many older people, and their decision not to right the wrong in this Budget is a source of enormous regret.
"We fear there will be severe consequences for some older people as a result and we will be monitoring this carefully over the coming weeks and months, while continuing to campaign."