Starmer defends winter fuel cut despite anger among Labour MPs
Sir Keir Starmer has again defended cutting the winter fuel allowance, despite Labour MPs blaming it for the party's poor performance at the local elections.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch opened her remarks at PMQs by asking the prime minister if he would now "admit he was wrong" to take the payment away from millions of pensioners.
Means testing the benefit was one of the government's first policy announcements. Sir Keir said the move would help "put our finances back in order after the last government lost control".
He said Labour's policies so far had enabled it to stabilise the economy, invest in the NHS and sign a new trade deal with India - the UK's biggest since it left the EU.
But tapping into discontent within Labour, Ms Badenoch cited criticism from Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan, the party's mayor in Doncaster, and backbench MPs.
" He's refused to listen to me on this. Will he at least listen to his own party and change course?" she asked.
The prime minister claimed Labour was the only party willing to say "how they would put the finances straight" and "take those challenges on".
'Act now before it's too late'
Sir Keir's defence of the winter fuel changes - which mean only the poorest pensioners on pension credit now receive the top-up - comes after Labour MPs demanded the government "act now before it's too late" and reverse the unpopular policy.
A number of MPs in the Red Wall - Labour's traditional heartlands in the north of England - reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership's response to the local elections had "fallen on deaf ears".
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so "isn't weak, it takes us to a position of strength".
The group, thought to number about 40 MPs, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform.
Nigel Farage's party also picked up more than 650 councillors and won control of 10 councils.
Following the results, Sir Keir said "we must deliver that change even more quickly - we must go even further".
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters' concerns.
3:02
'There is a lack of vision'
One of the MPs who was present at last night's meeting told Sky News there was "lots of anger at the government's response to the results".
"People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep," they said.
"There is a lack of vision from this government."
Another added: "Everyone was furious."
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week one might be on the cards.
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "The policy is set out, there will not be a change to the government's policy."
They added the decision was necessary "to ensure economic stability and repair the public finances following the £22bn black hole left by the previous government".
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Defending the time it has taken for the cases to come to court, a detective on the case said investigating allegations from 20 years ago was 'massively challenging'. Timeline of the Rochdale grooming gang scandals 2008 - A 15-year-old girl reports to police she has been raped repeatedly by a gang of men, and gives details of the abuse taking place above a takeaway in Rochdale. Police arrest two members of a grooming gang - ringleader Shabir Ahmed and Kabeer Hassan. 2009 - Police find evidence that Ahmed had sex with the girl, with the older man claiming she could have swapped underwear with a different young girl he had already admitted to having sex with. Later that year a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer rules that the victim's evidence is 'not credible' and decides the accused should be released without charge. 2010 - Operation Span, a new operation looking into allegations of grooming gangs in Rochdale, is launched with DC Maggie Oliver involved. 2011 - Chief prosecutor for the CPS North West, Nazir Afzal, reverses this decision and authorises charges against the pair. 2012 - His decision is vindicated when Ahmed – then 59 - and eight other men were jailed for a total of 77 years for raping and abusing up to 47 girls aged as young as 13. This sparks apologies from the police, council and CPS for failures that allowed the men to continue abusing girls for an additional two years. 2013 - Maggie Oliver resigns from Greater Manchester Police, claiming that evidence was ignored that could have convicted men who weren't part of the nine jailed the year before. 2016 - A second group of men are sentenced to up to 25 years in prison for sexual abuse after a victim, encouraged by previous convictions, comes forward with her ordeal. 2017 - A BBC documentary titled The Betrayed Girls features whistleblowers Ms Oliver and Sara Rowbothan, who ran an NHS sexual health clinic in Rochdale, with claims about grooming gangs. Both alleged that multiple known abusers were left free to prey on a generation of girls, with grooming culture embedded in parts of the town. The same year Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, orders a series of reports into how victims were protected up to 2013. 2023 - Five men are given sentences totalling more than 70 years after being found guilty of abusing two girls between 2002 and 2006. 2024 - The third of four reports into grooming gangs - and the first to focus on Rochdale - is released and points the finger at police and council bosses for failing to protect girls from their abusers. 'You don't have the golden hour, the initial opportunities that you do in a in the investigation where a crime just happened,' he said. 'There's no CCTV, limited phone work. Digital evidence goes out of the window, forensic evidence, it doesn't exist. 'You're relying massively on what the victims are telling you, and you're having to trawl through historical records. 'That's a challenge as well, because they get lost, they get deleted, they get purged.' 'So it's incredibly challenging for the investigation and for the victims.' Detectives on a special unit tasked with investigating major sex abuse rings worked with specialist prosecutors to split the case into multiple trials – each lasting several months - to make them manageable for jurors. 'Where we get a result for a victim and we get some justice, we hope that that for another victim it gives them the courage to take that step,' said Senior district Crown prosecutor Christopher Trotter. 'It's not going to prevent that trauma impacting their whole life, but it may bring some justice and have some impact to being able to move forward.' However court delays and over-running trials have also slowed the process of securing justice. A report into the Rochdale grooming gangs scandal ordered by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham last year found a generation of girls had been failed. Its lead author, child protection specialist Malcolm Newsam, identified 96 men who are still deemed a potential risk to children. He concluded that two 'lone voices' - Sara Rowbotham, co-ordinator of a young people's Crisis Intervention Team, and Maggie Oliver, a former Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Detective Constable turned whistleblower - had flagged clear evidence of 'prolific serial rape of countless children in Rochdale'. But this was not acted upon, with the children's unwillingness to make a formal complaint repeatedly used as an excuse for not investigating. 'GMP and Rochdale Council failed to prioritise the protection of children who were being sexually exploited by a significant number of men within the Rochdale area,' Mr Newsam wrote. 'Successive police operations were launched over this period, but these were insufficiently resourced to match the scale of the widespread organised exploitation. 'Consequently, children were left at risk and many of their abusers to this day have not been apprehended.' At the time, Mr Burnham called the report 'a detailed and distressing account of how many young people were so seriously failed'. Rochdale Council leader Councillor Neil Emmott said the authority was 'deeply sorry' for the 'very serious failures that affected the lives of children in our borough' and how officials 'failed to take the necessary action'. And Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson said it was 'a matter of profound regret' that victims of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale in the early 2000s were 'failed' by the force. A series of initiatives have taken place around Rochdale since 2012, including better engagement with potential victims and a scheme encouraging hotel owners and taxi firms to report concerns. Last year, an Ofsted report into Rochdale Council said 'children at risk receive an effective response'. But following the report, Ms Oliver hit out at more than a decade of 'failures, lies and cover ups'. She has since set up a foundation to help victims of child sex abuse, saying it see 'on a daily basis that victims and survivors of sexual offences are still routinely treated badly or even inhumanely, still not believed, still judged, still dismissed when they report these horrendous crimes'. Sharon Hubber, director of children's services, said: 'We know that these convictions are unlikely to erase the memories of the abuse these women were subjected to as children, but we hope they do bring some form of closure. We know that more could and should have been done by the people who were working here at the time and for that we are truly sorry.'
