One third of Britons think winter fuel payments should be restored to all pensioners, a survey has suggested after Sir Keir Starmer’s partial U-turn on restricting the benefit.
The Prime Minister said this week that he wanted to look at widening eligibility for the payments worth up to £300 after Labour limited who could receive the payment last year.
But officials have not said how many more pensioners would be eligible or if the policy would be altered in time for next winter.
A YouGov poll carried out on Thursday showed 44% said the benefit should still be means tested but offered to more pensioners than it was currently, while some 7% wanted the policy kept as it was now.
And 33% backed reverting to the previous system where it was universal.
The decision to means test the payment was one of the first announcements by Chancellor Rachel Reeves after Labour’s landslide election victory last year, and has been widely blamed for the party’s collapse in support.
Sir Keir was meeting with devolved national and regional leaders on Friday.
Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney was expected to call for the winter fuel payment to be fully restored for pensioners during bilateral talks with the Prime Minister.
Welsh Labour leader Baroness Eluned Morgan said she wanted the “majority of pensioners” to get the winter fuel allowance.
Asked on the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast if she would back taking it away from high-rate taxpayers but leaving it in place for everyone else, she said: “That’s probably where I’d be.”
