𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Anything less than the full restoration of winter fuel payments for pensioners will leave Sir Keir Starmer with another damaging fiasco.

The Treasury’s spreadsheet wizards will be devising models for means-testing but the Prime Minister should shut this down, learn the lessons of the politically disastrous decision to strip millions of older people of support, and reinstate the payments in time for the winter.

The whole point of a universal benefit is that nobody should miss out because they have not filled out the right form or ticked a particular box – and when it comes to getting support to heat a home in winter this can be a matter of life and death.

The Government will tie itself in knots if it merely tweaks the threshold for qualifying for the payments.

As an analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) makes clear, there is the real risk the administrative costs of administering a means-tested scheme would start to rack up. And if people are required to fill out forms and declare their entire income there is the danger those in greatest need will miss out.

Options including giving pensioners on disability benefits automatic entitlement to the fuel payments. But as the IFS says, this would not target the support at the poorest households.

Likewise, limiting it to people living in lower council tax bands would be unfair to the many pensioners who are on low incomes but still live in their large family homes which are a struggle to heat.

Labour will be hit with a new wave of anger if the vast majority of pensioners continued to be denied fuel support. Sir Keir would look like the worst type of spin merchant for raising hopes and then failing to stump up the cash.

A comparatively tiny amount of public money is required to restore the payments and end this debacle. The IFS says a return to universal entitlement would cost around £1.5billion a year.

This is a small price to pay to help the nation’s older citizens at a time of surging costs. The average entitlement is just £242 but if it encourages an elderly person to keep the radiator on when they feel cold this is a good investment.

The greatest problem is not that some millionaire pensioners receive some extra cash each year. The real scandal is so many British pensioners are badly off when compared with their counterparts in other major countries.

The House of Commons Library reported that in 2022 14.5% of pensioners lived in “relative income poverty” – the 14th highest rate out of the 34 major economies in the OECD. It is a national shame for retirees to be worse off in the UK than in the likes of France, where the figure was just 5.8%.

The vast majority of pensioners in Britain are not living the high-life. Most can do little do boost their income but many are now being forced to pay income tax as a result of the freeze in personal allowances.

Rather than devise a costly and clunky system to decide who gets a few hundred pounds to help with winter costs, the Government should do everything it can to end the link between old age and destitution. Ageing brings enough challenges without having to fear poverty.