A Welcome Labour U-Turn On Winter Fuel Payments

The cutting of the £300 Winter Fuel Payments for 10 million pensioners was always a massive own goal for the Labour Party and after months of denying they were going to scrap it, Keir Starmer today announced U-turn on the payments although no details have emerged except they will change the threshold to ensure more pensioners are eligible so we may not know of the detail until the budget in October or November.
Before the change, all pensioners got the hundreds of pounds of cash, and the government claimed it was saving £1.5bn by changing things which in a £2.7 trillion economy is a drop in the Ocean and inevitably the Government are trying to save face by spinning that the decision has been taken now because the economy has improved, allowing the government more financial spending power.
For once I find myself agreeing with the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, who said that the Prime Minister's decision to roll back cuts to winter fuel payments was: 'Inevitable as this was a bad decision right from the get-go', which it was but no so much the decision, but at the extremely low £12,000 threshold it was set at.
The new level is expected to be pitched at the 1 million pensioners who are in the higher rate tax band of £50,000, the same level at which Child Benefit is capped, but apart from the EU deals which was recently announced, Labour have not covered themselves in glory over the past year so now hopefully they will look at U-turning on not scrapping the two child benefit cap and the changes to personal independence payments.