Starmer refuses four times to apologise for stripping pensioners of winter fuel payments_l
Up to 10 million pensioners are set to lose the £300 lifeline.
Winter Fuel Payments: Labour members protest policy
Sir Keir Starmer refused to apologise four times for stripping pensioners of the winter fuel payment during an interview with Susanna Reid.
Up to 10 million older people will lose the £300 payment after Rachel Reeves’ decision to axe it in a bid to fill a £22 billion blackhole.
The Prime Minister was asked how he can justify taking away the money from those formerly working people while appearing on Good Morning Britain.
Keir Starmer refused to apologise (Image: GMB)
He said: “Well, it’s tough and I think the first thing to say and to explain is why we had to do it. We inherited a really damaged economy, we did an audit and we discovered an undisclosed £22 billion black hole this year, which we have to fix.”
Susanna Reid from the show later talked about a regular viewer of Good Morning Britain, Chrissy.
She is a pensioner and an NHS nurse for 25 years on the full state pension, which puts her just a few pounds over the threshold for pension credit.
Arthritis sufferer Chrissy is about to lose her winter fuel allowance. She estimates her fuel bills are about to go up by £40 a month this winter and she is dreading it. She voted for Labourbut she feels let down.
Asking Sir Keir if he would like to take this opportunity to say sorry to pensioners like Chrissy, he said: “Well, I am really concerned that we’ve been put in this position. When you inherit an economy with £22 billion missing, it is a really difficult set of choices. But what I don’t want to do is to allow the economy to run out of control.
What I want to make sure is that every single pensioner, there is that increase through the triple lock each and every year. £460 next year because of the triple lock. We have to take that action. But I also have to fix the NHS. Talking to pensioners, so many of them want the NHS to work properly because they’re dependent on it.”
Asked again if he would like to apologise, Sir Keir continued “What I’d say to Chrissy is this. I absolutely promised that we would stabilise the economy to make sure we never had the economy getting out of control again. We then discovered £22 billion missing.”
Asked again later in the interview, if the Prime Minister would like to apologise, he said “The people who should be saying sorry are the last government who left a hole of £22 billion, and they should be sorry for that and they should apologise for that.”
Susanna Reid was left unimpressed (Image: GMB)
Pushed again for a fourth time, Susanna asked ‘So you’re not going to apologise?’ to which he said: “I’ve come in to fix the mess, fix the problems, and that’s tough, really tough decisions. The cost of not doing it is to run the risk that we lose control of the economy again. I’m not going to do that because if I do, you will be saying to me in two or three years’ time, if we lose control of the economy, will you now say sorry for having lost control of the economy?
“So the apology needs to come from the last government who left such a mess, £22 billion black hole, we can’t walk past it, it’s a huge amount of money, and if we don’t stabilise the economy, we can’t keep to the triple lock. And the triple lock is really important for every pensioner because that is the increase year on year. As I say, £900 this year, £460 next year.”
