Wes Streeting has played down reports the government might be planning to rethink its unpopular cuts to the winter fuel payment after the local elections.
Labour performed significantly worse than expected last week, losing 187 England council seats – despite not having many to begin with in the heavily Conservative areas where the votes were taking place.
Some MPs have suggested the first step to rebuilding trust could be a U-turn on the controversial winter fuel policy.
The Guardian reported this morning that figures inside Downing Street were considering whether to raise the income threshold where pensioners would not be able to claim the benefit, which pays for heating in winter.
This approach was criticised as not sufficient by long-serving Labour MP Diane Abbott, who wrote on X: ‘Reviewing it is not enough for pensioners. It is also not enough to restore Labour’s battered reputation.
‘The winter fuel allowance must be restord [sic] in full.’
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She also backed a thread written by former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, where he said government decision-makers were ‘not living in same world as rest of us’ if they think a review ‘will save them’.
Mike Amesbury, the ex-Labour MP whose resignation after a conviction for assault led to the Runcorn & Helsby by-election and the party’s loss of the seat to Reform, also said a rethink was needed.
He told the Today programme: ‘Reform have been the beneficiaries, really, of some big political mistakes from the Labour government, and I sincerely hope that Keir [Starmer], the Labour prime minister, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, not only listen, but learn.’
But in an appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, the Health Secretary said there is not ‘formal review or anything like that going on’.
Streeting added: ‘At this stage, ahead of a spending review or budget where these sorts of decisions are normally taken, I wouldn’t be close to those sorts of discussions.’
He said the policy – alongside other controversial moves like the rise in employers’ national insurance payments – ‘are the means through which we are investing in our NHS to deliver results’.
However, he acknowledged anger over the decision to means test the winter fuel allowance had contributed to Labour’s drubbing at the ballot box.
Streeting said: ‘I’m not going to insult your listeners, or indeed the voters, by pretending that winter fuel hasn’t been an issue on the doorstep.’
Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan, who faces a tricky challenge from Reform at next year’s Senedd elections, said she was willing to draw a line between the UK government and her own on the issue.
In a speech in Cardiff, she said: ‘The cut in winter fuel allowance is something that comes up time and again, and I hope the UK government will rethink this policy.’
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