Ed Miliband says Reeves ‘deserves credit' for winter fuel payment U-turn

The Guardian

20 hours ago

Rachel Reeves 'deserves credit' for her U-turn on winter fuel allowance, Ed Miliband has said while denying that it was wrong to make the initial cut.
The Treasury announced on Monday that it would restore the allowance to all pensioners with an income of £35,000 or less a year, amid public outrage over cut that was the first act of the Labour government. Reeves had previously removed the benefit from all but the poorest pensioners – those on pension credit.
The decision has drawn criticism from those who have pointed out the relative wealth of pensioners and that couples with a joint income of £70,000 will receive it.
The U-turn has also emboldened backbenchers who have been pushing for more action to tackle child poverty, with the government facing intense demands to lift the two-child limit, which experts blame for worsening deprivation.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Miliband, the energy secretary, said it was the right thing to do to change course but denied the government was wrong to take the initial decision.
'We've changed the threshold listening to the strength of feeling that people had,' he said. 'I think Rachel Reeves deserves credit for that. She's heard the strength of feeling that people have. She said it can be accommodated within our overall fiscal figures, and that's why she's made the change.'
Asked if the initial change was a mistake, Miliband said: 'No, she took a whole series of decisions to stabilise the nation's finances. Just put yourself in the shoes of the chancellor. She came into office confronted by a whole series of spending commitments that the last government had made, which they had no idea how they were paying for.
'And she was being told, you've got to take action to show that we're going to stabilise the nation's finances. She initially [did] winter fuel, then she did a whole series of other changes in the budget … that's the context for this.'
He also defended Reeves setting out how the government would meet the cost later this year at the budget. 'It's perfectly normal for a chancellor to set out at a fiscal event … how all the figures add up.
'This is a relatively small amount of money, and the chancellor [took] a whole series of decisions in the budget last autumn, some of which people have complained about, tax rises on business and the wealthy, to create the room for manoeuvre, to make the change in the threshold that she did.'
Miliband announced on Tuesday that the government would spend £14.2bn funding the building of Sizewell C nuclear power station, saying it was the first time a government had backed the nuclear expansion plan by laying out how they would pay for it.
'We're actually putting forward the money to make it happen. This is the biggest investment in new nuclear in more than half a century in Britain,' he said.
The announcement comes as part of the £113bn of new capital investment Reeves will set out in the spending review that the Treasury hopes will be the key theme – and enough to stave off further disquiet over expected cuts to day-to-day spending.
The green light for the development at Sizewell C marks the end of a long 15-year journey to secure investment for the plant since the site was first earmarked for new nuclear development in 2010.
Miliband said there would be no future Chinese investment in this development. 'It's majority public investment in Sizewell C,' he said. 'We're going to get some private investment but obviously that always goes through national security checks about making sure that any bidders, any parties to this, are people you would want as part of your nuclear power station.'