Sir Keir Starmer was pressed on why he was “picking a fight with the pensioners” in a BBC local radio grilling.

The Prime Minister faced questions about Labour’s controversial winter fuel payment cuts during a round of interviews this morning.

Speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside, Sir Keir was asked about warnings of more pensioners going into poverty as a result of making the allowance means tested.

Sir Keir said: “Without the change that we’re putting in place at the moment, the allowance goes to everyone, whether they need it or not, and therefore there are many who don’t need it because they’re relatively wealthy.

“And I think most people would say that doesn’t make sense when you’ve got a really, really difficult, tight budget – We’ve got to deliver for our NHS, for our schools, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got public services that people can rely on, including, of course, pensioners. So it makes sense to make the change.”

Sir Keir added that it was “important to protect pensioners who most need the allowance” and urged people who are eligible for pension credit to take it up.

Elsewhere on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, the PM was played a clip of a caller called Maxine warning “elderly people are going to die” as a result of the policy.

Sir Keir insisted there were decisions made in the Budget which he would have preferred “not to have had to make” when asked if he would come to regret the winter fuel decision.

He told BBC

 Radio WM: “There are lots of decisions we had to make in the Budget which, to be perfectly honest, I’d have preferred not to have had to make.

“But when you inherit a broken economy, when you then find out there was £22 billion which doesn’t appear on the books, and you’d need to balance the books, very, very difficult decisions have to be made.”

He said that the Government is “making sure that those entitled to pension credit are protected through this”, and added: “There are a number of people who are entitled to pension credit who aren’t claiming it, and it’s very important that (…) they take up that entitlement.”

It comes as the Labour Government is facing an ongoing backlash over plans to restrict the winter fuel allowance to only those on pension credit.

Ministers have blamed the move on a £22 billion black hole in the public finances left by the Tpories, which they have denied.

The payments of up to £300 were previously available to all pensioners regardless of income or benefits.

The move will see 10 million OAPs miss out and is expected to save the Treasury up to £1.5 billion a year.