Latest news with #winterFuelPayment
Telegraph
24-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Farage outflanks Starmer on benefits
Nigel Farage will this week outflank Sir Keir Starmer by committing to scrapping the two-child benefit cap and fully reinstating the winter fuel payment. The Reform leader will appeal to Left-leaning voters in a challenge to Sir Keir in a speech launching his biggest attack yet on the Prime Minister. His intervention is likely to spark a fresh wave of demands from Labour rebels for Downing Street to speed up planned policy shifts on both fronts. Sir Keir is open to scrapping the two-child benefit cap but Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is understood to be resisting an immediate announcement until she can set out how it would be funded. Removing the cap entirely, combined with reinstating winter fuel payments for some pensioners as announced last week, would cost the Treasury as much as £5 billion, making tax rises more likely. Mr Farage will use his first address since Reform's local elections triumph to warn the Prime Minister that traditional Labour voters are turning to his party. He is expected to say: 'Starmer is one of the most unpatriotic prime ministers in our history and this past week has been evidence of that. 'The Prime Minister is out of touch with working people, he doesn't understand what they want and how they feel about the big issues facing Britain. '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 Reform leader will commit to ending the two-child cap, which was introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 to cut the benefits bill. A Reform source said: 'We're against the two-child cap and we'd go further on winter fuel by bringing the payment back for everyone. 'That's already outflanking Labour.' Zia Yusuf, Reform's chairman, has said the party would pay for policies like the reinstatement of the winter fuel payment by cutting the foreign aid budget, closing asylum hotels and ending net zero subsidies. The two child-benefit cap blocks parents from claiming Universal Credit or child tax credit for more than two children and has been blamed for driving a rise in poverty. Mr Farage has previously spoken about how both the welfare and taxation systems should be used to encourage families to have more children. Sir Keir is under growing pressure to abolish the two-child benefit cap to appease as many as 150 Labour rebels who are threatening to vote down separate cuts to disability benefits. He backs ending the limit, but is said to be facing pushback from Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, and Ms Reeves, who are wary of the £3.5 billion cost. The two-child benefit cap will now be either watered down or abolished, it is understood, but an announcement on the final course of action has been delayed until the autumn budget. That will give the Chancellor enough time to work out how the change will be paid for, with a widespread expectation that she will have to raise taxes. But the delay has angered some Labour MPs, who have demanded No 10 take action now. Dame Meg Hillier, the Labour chairman of the Commons treasury committee, said lifting the cap was 'the only way we'll lift children out of poverty in this Parliament'. Sir Keir placated some rebels earlier this week by announcing that he would perform a partial about-turn on the winter fuel allowance. The Prime Minister said he would change the rules so that 'more pensioners' would qualify after the policy was blamed for Labour's local elections defeat. But he will now come under pressure to match Mr Farage's pledge to fully reinstate the payment to all pensioners, at a cost of about £1.4 billion a year. Reform 'on course to win next election' In his speech, Mr Farage is set to launch a wide-ranging attack on Sir Keir covering immigration, the Chagos Islands deal and his EU reset. He is expected to say: 'Immigration is still at a historical high and Labour don't have the want or political will to do what needs to be done to bring it down to net zero, which is what the majority of the British public want.' He will be flanked by Reform's new council leaders, mayors and its latest MP, Sarah Pochin, who won her Runcorn seat in a by-election victory over Labour. The speech is designed to send a message that the party is on course to win the next election and that backing it is not a wasted vote. Mr Farage's previous parties, the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party, failed to make the transition from protest votes to frontrunners in general elections. Reform officials are confident that the local elections, when the party took control of 10 councils, represented a 'coming of age moment' where voters viewed it as a realistic party of government. The party has led in the national opinion polls since the middle of April and was seven points ahead of Labour in the most recent YouGov survey. Sir Keir has been seen to be tacking to the Right, particularly on immigration, to try to see off Reform's threat, with Ms Pochin saying that Labour was 'sounding more like Reform than Reform are'.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Council to consider £4m household support fund
More than £4m could be allocated to helping people meet their essential household living costs in Barnsley. Councillors are due to discuss plans to provide millions of pounds of support to people in the district who are struggling with the cost of living. If approved the money would be used to help residents with winter fuel payments, school meal vouchers, energy costs and provide debt and budgeting advice. Barnsley Council said in previous years the funding, provided from the government's Household Support Fund, had been used to help hundreds of people. Robert Frost, cabinet spokesperson for core services, said: "Our work to deliver support through last year's funding helped many residents through challenging times. "I'm confident that this new round of funding will continue to make a significant impact on the lives of those who need it most." The council said last year it had provided a £200 Winter Fuel Payment to 2,008 households who would have not received any support due to the ending of the government's Winter Fuel Allowance. The funding was also used to help 1,322 households to claim pension credits who previously were not receiving anything, and 614 households to receive their correct entitlement. Since 2020 the council has received £16.4m through the government's Household Support Fund, but said it had been told the current round of funding would be the last with the scheme set to end in 2026. Cabinet members are due to discuss the additional funding on Wednesday. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North Barnsley Council
Sky News
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said. Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky's Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a "progressive win" rather than simply "protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer" over winter fuel. Earlier this week, 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". Labour's decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners. The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron's austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can't make claims for any further children they have. Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit. Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target. She said: "It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty. "Let's see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies." Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party's "connection" to a core group of voters "died" with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners. "We need to reset the government," she told Electoral Dysfunction. "The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments. "I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it." A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, 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 UK. 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. One of the MPs who was present at the 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."
Sky News
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel payment U-turn, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said. Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky's Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a "progressive win" rather than simply "protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer" over winter fuel. Earlier this week, 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". Labour's decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners. The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron's austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can't make claims for any further children they have. Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit. Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target. She said: "It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty. "Let's see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies." Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party's "connection" to a core group of voters "died" with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners. "We need to reset the government," she told Electoral Dysfunction. "The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments. "I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it." A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, 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 UK. 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. One of the MPs who was present at the 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."
