Rachel Reeves’s outrageous plot to grab winter fuel cash from families of dead pensioners
The Chancellor confirmed yesterday that some pensioners would get the winter fuel payment back (Image: Getty)
The Government’s winter fuel U-turn could tax dead pensioners’ families after Rachel Reeves confirmed yesterday that more will receive the allowance this winter. However, payments will not be universal, and grieving families of tens of thousands of deceased recipients could be pursued by the taxman to recoup the cost, it has been reported.
Officials are reportedly considering utilising cash from high-income pensioners because creating a new means test would be costly and complex. It is thought there could be at least six months between the £300 payment being made and getting it back, and many elderly people could have died by then, leaving their relatives to fork out for the bill.
The government has U-turned on its winter fuel policy (Image: Getty)
“We should never have scrapped the winter fuel payment in the first place, but the whole process of reinstating it has been completely chaotic. The optics of us demanding the money back from grieving families are dire,” a source told The Guardian.
The Chancellor told reporters yesterday that “more people will get winter fuel payment this winter”, adding that further details will be announced “as soon as we possibly can”.
She said: “People should be in no doubt that the means test will increase and more people will get winter fuel payment this winter.”
When asked whether she would tell the public if she planned to fund her commitments by raising taxes or cutting spending on other departments, Ms Reeves said: “As we have been clear, on winter fuel, we will set out how we will fund that at the next fiscal event.
“We will set out how everything will be paid for at the budget in the autumn but it’s important that everything that we do is funded, because that’s how people know that we can afford it.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “As the Prime Minister has said, we will only take decisions that are affordable. He has made clear that we want to expand the number of pensioners who are eligible for the winter fuel payment.
“We will set out the details of that in due course. You have got the Chancellor’s words from this morning. You have got the PM’s words from earlier in the week that we want to set out that detail as soon as possible.”
Disaster awaits if Rachel Reeves is blamed for police collapse
Labour has a huge majority but it is in electoral danger (Image: Getty)
The Chancellor is love-bombing traditional Labour heartlands to stop Reform UK delivering the type of demolition job the party suffered in Scotland when voters embraced the SNP.
Labour knows it cannot allow voters in once rock-solid seats to feel taken for granted. The Government suffered a PR-nightmare at the start of the year when it announced a raft of pro-growth policies which looked centred on the South.
Its support for a third runway at Heathrow, the Oxford-Cambridge “growth corridor” and the Lower Thames Crossing did little to suggest ending the North-South divide – or, as Boris Johnson would put it, “levelling-up” – is a top priority for this Labour administration.
The Chancellor has now seized the chance to assure communities far from London they are on her radar, trumpeting her support for transport schemes across the North and Midlands as part of a £15.6billion funding package.
Ms Reeves understands she must be seen as something other than Slasher-in-Chief as next week’s spending review races closer. Her opponents will accuse her of implementing Tory-style austerity that could have been avoided if she had not stamped on growth with her shock Budget which hiked up taxes on employers.
Labour is dismayed Reform UK is in first place in the polls and Sir Keir Starmer has tried to brand Nigel Farage as “Liz Truss 2.0”. He knows Labour’s electoral survival hinges on nailing down voters’ trust on the economy – and it is essential his Chancellor commands the respect of the country.
But if she is seen to take the axe to the Home Office in the spending review – right at the moment Reform is reaching out to voters worried about illegal immigration and the breakdown of law and order – Labour risks sinking even further in the polls.
The nation’s country’s most senior police chiefs have warned “negotiations between the Home Office and the Treasury are going poorly”. They say cuts would mean “stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise”.
Ms Reeves insists the Government will be “increasing spending on police” in the spending review.
But if the message voters get from this landmark moment is police won’t turn up to crimes, voters will conclude Britain is broken under Labour. And then they will look for an alternative party of Government.
