Pensioner fuel allowance U-turn should have happened months ago, says North Devon MP

In a recent Prime Minister's Questions, Keir Starmer finally U-turned on the plan to scrap winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners. 

Frankly, while I welcome this decision, this climbdown should have happened months ago. 

It shouldn’t have taken nearly a year of fear, anxiety, and pressure (and a damning set of local election results!) for the government to eventually listen.

Although I understand that the previous Conservative government crashed our economy and left us with a spiralling cost-of-living crisis, I absolutely do not understand how Labour thought withdrawing support from pensioners was a good idea in response. This policy change didn’t even raise a significant amount of money in the grand scheme of things, yet it made life significantly harder for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. It felt both short-sighted and utterly unfair. 

As soon as Labour announced these cuts last year, I started hearing from countless pensioners from all across North Devon about how these cuts would impact them and what it meant in real terms.

If the Chancellor had bothered to come to North Devon and hear the concerns of frankly terrified pensioners, worried about staying warm or going hungry, she would have realised what a disastrous decision this was from the outset. 

In North Devon alone, more than 22,100 pensioners are estimated to lose out on this payment, and that’s in a rural area where heating costs are already higher and homes are harder to insulate. 

More than 70 per cent of rural homes in the UK were built before 1980; they leak heat and they’re expensive to keep warm. 

These cuts caused such anxiety that our Liberal Democrat-run North Devon Council stepped in. Councillors voted to condemn the planned cuts, the council committed to exploring other ways to provide financial assistance through the Household Support Fund (HSF) and allocated around £200,000 in grant support for pensioners receiving council tax reduction. 

They also carried out a local outreach campaign to raise awareness about pension credit and other benefits as well as writing to nearly 300 pensioners who may have been entitled to pension credit but weren’t currently claiming it, making it the first council in the country to do so. 

This was local government at its best, and a proud moment for our Lib-Dem-run North Devon Council. But let’s be honest: they should never have been put in that position in the first place. 

Meanwhile, the government still hasn’t confirmed when the changes to winter fuel payments will come into effect, how much they’ll cost or who will be eligible. That lack of clarity just adds to the anxiety many pensioners are already feeling. 

The truth is, this policy was doomed from the start. It shouldn’t have taken almost a year and an awful set of local election results to finally start to get the message which my Lib Dem colleagues and I have repeated to them time and again in Westminster.

We will have to wait to see if the government has truly listened and brings forward a genuine plan to change course but after this utter shambles I do not have much hope. 

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I will continue to hold the Chancellor’s feet to the fire and make sure that pensioners here in North Devon get the fair deal they deserve.