The government will not “water down” cuts to the winter fuel payment after it was voted through on Tuesday, a minister has said.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook said removing the winter fuel payment from around 10 million pensioners is “the right decision to make” following backlash from MPs and charities after the policy was voted through on Tuesday.
He told Kay Burley on Sky News Breakfast: “We’re not going to water down that policy.
“We think it’s the right decision to make. It’s a decision we took with a heavy heart. None of us expected to do it.
“As you know, on taking office, we discovered £22bn of unfunded spending commitments. Those in-year unfunded spending pressures, they’re real.”
Only pensioners who claim pension credit will now receive the payment of up to £300 this winter to help with higher heating bills. Previously, all pensioners received it.
A total of 53 Labour MPs did not vote, while one Labour MP, Jon Trickett, voted against the government as he said he “could not in good conscience vote to make my constituents poorer”.
Those non-votes do not automatically equate to an abstention for each MP as they may have received permission to miss a vote.
Shouts of “shame” could be heard in the House of Commons chamber as the result was announced.
Rachel Maskell was one Labour MP who abstained after saying pensioners will be “frightened” to turn on the lights in case they cannot pay their bills.
Sir Keir Starmer’s suspension of seven MPs who voted against the government on the two-child benefit cap in July may well have put Labour MPs off voting against the government entirely.
Conservative MPs hit out at the decision, with the shadow pensions secretary Mel Stride calling the policy “absurd”, saying it will “cause untold hardship to millions”.
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Ministers have spent the past five weeks defending the decision after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the cut at the end of July.
They have repeatedly said it is a “tough choice” and one they did not want to make, but the state the economy was left in by the Conservatives means they had to make cuts to stabilise it.
Mr Pennycook added that the government is “confident the support is in place for the most vulnerable pensioners who need help this winter”.
He said pension credit, the £150 warm home discount and an additional £421m into the Household Support Fund for councils to help the most vulnerable people will help over the winter.
Keeping the triple lock on pensions, where the state pension rises by whatever is highest out of 2.5%, inflation or average earnings growth, will also help all pensioners, he added.
