Keir Starmer could set out more details of the winter fuel allowance U-turn at the spending review next month, Angela Rayner has suggested.
However, the deputy prime minister said she could not guarantee the payment would be restored in time for this winter, amid reports that the Treasury is looking at restoring the allowance to all but the richest pensioners.
“I think that we’ve got the upcoming spending review, and I’m sure that the chancellor will set it out when we’ve got the opportunity, at the first opportunity, she will set out what we’ll be able to do,” Rayner said.
Asked on Sky News if more detail would come at the spending review in less than a fortnight, she said: “I mean, the prime minister has announced it, so logically to me that indicates that the prime minister wants to do something in this area. And if the prime minister wants to do that, I’m sure the chancellor is going to look at how we can achieve that.”
This week the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, is due to make a speech in which he will attempt to outflank Labour on welfare – calling for the restoration of the full winter fuel allowance and the end of the two-child benefit limit.
The prime minister told MPs in the Commons on Wednesday that he would look again at the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance. It comes after a huge backlash from voters at the local elections against one of the most unpopular measures announced by the government.
Starmer is also said to be convinced of the need to lift the two-child benefit cap as a response to the government’s child poverty taskforce, now delayed until the autumn.
The prime minister had previously said details of the reversal would be set out “at the next fiscal event” – meaning the budget in the autumn. A No 10 spokesperson said: “As the economy recovers, we want more people to feel the benefits of that in their everyday lives. That’s why we would like to expand the number of pensioners who are eligible for winter fuel payment when possible.”
Asked on the BBC if the government would bring back the allowance in full for pensioners, Rayner said it would depend on the state of the economy and said she “can’t guarantee” it would return in time for winter.
The Sunday Times reported that civil servants had raised concerns about their ability to build a new system of payment allocations for pensioners in time for the winter, because of ageing computer systems.
Farage will set out plans to woo working-class Labour voters in a speech this coming week, the Sunday Telegraph reported. He will say: “It’s going to be these very same working people that will vote Reform at the next election and kick Labour out of government.”
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, speaking on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme, said the Conservatives would immediately restore the winter fuel allowance to all pensioners but would keep the two-child benefit limit. She called for the immediate restoration of the winter fuel payment.
“We would never have taken the winter fuel away. We kept it for 14 years, we brought in the triple lock, we look after pensioners,” she said.
But Badenoch defended the two-child benefit cap, calling it “absolutely the right thing to do”.
Badenoch said Farage was making empty promises to gain power, telling Sky News that Farage as prime minister would be “very bad for this country”. She said: “Nigel Farage is someone who is going to say whatever he wants in order to get into power. I am taking the hard road – I’m not going to do that.”
She added: “He’s making the same mistake that Keir Starmer made of making promises, and then they’ll get into government and can’t deliver it.”
