Keir Starmer summarily threw open the door to a winter fuel U-turn at prime minister’s questions this afternoon and, wasting no time, marched his party through it. In fact, the PM did so on a few occasions — although that was mainly for the benefit of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, whose strict script failed to account for the genuinely momentous political development playing out before her.
The winter fuel payment cut, and the surrounding row, has provided one of the defining narratives of this Labour government. The cut was announced on 30 July, the eve of parliament’s long summer recess, by chancellor Rachel Reeves. She insisted the move would save the exchequer around £1.5 billion.
But in pure political terms, the cut has proved immensely costly. The damage it has wreaked was evidenced — profoundly, unmistakably — at the local elections last month. That followed research from More in Common that showed the policy was simultaneously the most widely understood by the electorate, and the most vehemently despised.
Starmer has now sought to atone for his government’s “original sin”. The question that follows is whether the act of U-turning — with all the implications it has for the government’s authority across wider policy rows — proves more costly than the now-hypothetical act of retaining the measure. Those cabinet ministers and Labour backbenchers who expressed concerns about the cut from the start (either privately or publicly) will feel emboldened. Some may now see the government’s controversial welfare cuts as fair game.
But not acting, Downing Street has concluded, posed the greatest risk of all. Whatever the broader political ramifications, voters had cast their verdict on the poisonous policy, leaving Starmer little choice but to reach for an antidote. He will have to deal with the side effects in time.
The PM’s statement today came in response to a likely planted question from Labour backbencher Sarah Owen. Owen, who has criticised the government from the “soft left” over its immigration rhetoric and welfare policy, asked Starmer what measures he could take to help “struggling pensioners” through the cost-of-living crisis.
The PM’s response is worth quoting in full: “I recognise that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis including pensioners and as the economy improves we want to make sure people feel those improvements in their days as their lives go forward and that is why we want to ensure that as we go forward more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments.
“As you would expect, we will only make decisions we will afford. That is why we will look at that as part of a fiscal event.”
Those remarks drew a knowing “Ah!” from the opposition benches. The murmuring only quietened once Kemi Badenoch was called by the speaker.
“It was extraordinary listening to that last answer from the prime minister”, the Conservative leader began. She went on to address the new inflation figures (the consumer prices index rose to 3.5 per cent in April), before turning to reports of cabinet division. A memo from Angela Rayner’s department, urging the chancellor to raise taxes by £3 billion to £4 billion a year ahead of the spring statement, was published this morning by the Daily Telegraph. Badenoch knows a thing or two about frontbench insubordination; she described Rayner as “on manoeuvres”.
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Only then, four questions in, did the Tory leader reference the winter fuel payment. “We heard his earlier answer on winter fuel”, Badenoch said, “let’s try and get some more information”.
The problem was that the Conservative leader’s scripted intervention did not seek further information. Badenoch wanted a “yes or no” response to a question Starmer had, in effect, already answered: “Is he planning to U-turn on winter fuel cuts?”
Starmer commented: “I made clear in my earlier answer that as the economy improves, we want to take measures that will impact on people’s lives and therefore we will look at the threshold. But that will have to be part of a fiscal event.”
But Badenoch was not satisfied. She hit back: “I made it really easy for the prime minister, just a simple question, ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and he could not answer. I wonder how the public feel about a man who cannot give a straight answer to a straight question.”
It is not the first time Badenoch hasn’t been able to take yes for an answer at PMQs. In a session earlier this year, Starmer lampooned the opposition leader and her script that “doesn’t allow her to listen to the answer”.
Today’s exchange is just the latest example of Badenoch proving either unwilling or unable to think on her feet. Once more, the Conservative leader was stifled by her own script.
Interestingly, this now well-established precedent has created a compelling incentive for the PM to try and wrong-foot Badenoch, as he did today.
It’s telling that Starmer is willing to announce a major U-turn mere seconds before the individual in theory best-placed to benefit is due to scrutinise him. Paradoxically but explicably, prime minister’s questions has become a forum for Starmer to brief out potentially embarrassing news stories — so little faith does he have in the Conservative leader to capitalise across her six questions.
Tory MPs understandably looked rather queasy once Badenoch returned to her place on the opposition frontbench. The Conservative leader’s inability to deviate from the rigid strictures set out by her script is seeing opportunity after opportunity squandered on the floor of the commons.
Conservative MPs were then forced to listen to Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, go out of his way to ask a specific question on the winter fuel U-turn. In his contribution, Davey urged Starmer to reverse the cut “in full”.
The prime minister responded: “As [the economy] improves, I do want people to feel the benefit of the measures that we are taking, and that is why I want to ensure that more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel.”
It took mere minutes for the Lib Dems to capitalise with a press release ridiculing the “world’s longest U-turn”. CCHQ, meanwhile, spent the best part of two hours pulling together a quote from Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary.
It’s further proof of what we have known for some time: all is not well in the Conservative Party.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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