MPs are backing plans to drastically cut winter heating allowances for pensioners, despite the majority of the Labour party’s committee refusing to support it.
The government is facing massive protests over plans for controversial benefit testing, which would mean more than nine million pensioners lose between £200 and £300 a year on heating bills.
Finance minister Rachel Reeves said the cuts were needed to plug a £22 billion “black hole” in the country’s finances that became apparent after the election.
Labour officials also argue that this will simplify the programme and ensure it can be spent where it is most needed.
But several Labour MPs, including senior female MP Diane Abbott, have signalled they are against the move ahead of a crucial vote on the issue today.
The Conservative motion criticised the government’s decision, saying it was “likely to cause further strain on the National Health Service”.
Opposition MPs today argued that the changes to winter fuel payments were a “political decision” after the government offered train drivers an above-inflation pay increase to settle the strike.
Attention was focused on the number of MPs who abstained, as it was unlikely that many of the Labour MPs who opposed the decision would support the Conservative motion.
In the end, 228 people voted in favour of the Conservative motion and 348 against it.
53 Labour MPs, including Abbott, did not vote, although some did so because they could not make it to the House of Commons to vote.
Image
But some people voted in favour of the motion: John Trickett, Normanton Hemsworth MP.
In a statement after the vote, Mr Trickett said he was “concerned that the cut-off of payments to pensioners will push many more people into poverty this winter. It could even be a matter of life and death.”
He added that he had “worked behind the scenes” to try to change ministers’ minds but “was unsuccessful”.
Age UK charity director Caroline Abrahams said the charity was “deeply disappointed but not surprised” by the outcome of today’s vote.
She said: “We are baffled why some ministers insist this is the right thing to do, when the reality is that enforcing the policy the Government is pursuing will make millions of poor pensioners even poorer.
“We, and many others, are convinced that this is not the case, which is why we will continue to stand by pensioners who cannot afford to lose their payments and work to ensure they get more Government support.”
The benefit cuts mean that the only pensioners who will receive winter heating oil subsidy in England and Wales are those on Pension Allowance and other means-tested benefits.
Ministers urged pensioners to check whether they are entitled to a pension, as an estimated 880,000 people are eligible but have not received it.
A Downing Street spokesman said there had been around 38,500 claims for pension benefits in the five weeks since the winter fuel payment was first announced, but Age UK described the claim rate as “disastrously low”.
