Winter fuel allowance latest: Up to 50 Labour MPs could rebel over cut as Starmer defends ‘unpopular’ move

Around 10 million people are expected to be directly impacted by the plans announced by the chancellor in July – prompting gasps in the House of Commons – to cut the winter fuel payments first introduced by her predecessor Gordon Brown in 1997.

The decision, made ahead of Ms Reeves’s first budget next month, will axe the payment of up to £300 for all pensioners except those in receipt of those claiming pension credit or other means-tested benefits.

My colleague Albert Toth has more details on the cut here:

Labour frontbenchers and MPs have reportedly expressed fears that chancellor Rachel Reeves’s “brutal” plan to scrap the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners will put more older people in hospital.

With MPs set to vote on the policy on Tuesday, Labour politicians have expressed their own grave concerns amid a flood of worried emails from constituents reported by The Independent to have shocked new MPs in particular.

In remarks to The Guardian, anonymous Labour MPs lined up to relay the sheer volume of the correspondence they have received on the issue, with one saying: “I don’t think there is a Labour MP who isn’t worried … I’ve had more people stopping me in the street than over Brexit. Pensioners just pleading that we don’t do this.”

One cabinet source complained to the paper that the policy “hasn’t even been thought through properly”, warning: “We’re going to end up with more old people in hospital or care as a result, with all the costs involved in that.”

Another MP said: “It’s going to save us £1.5bn but that won’t be worth the political hit we’ll take this winter. The right-wing press will be full of stories about elderly people sitting in A&E or on buses because they can’t afford their fuel bills and it’s the only way they can keep warm.”