Winter fuel allowance: Wirral Labour councillors urged to fight cuts

Labour councillors urged to fight winter fuel cuts Labour-run Wirral Council has been challenged to fight against the government's plans to remove winter fuel allowance payments from nearly 60,000 pensioners in the borough.

Conservative members of the local authority have put forward a motion which, if passed later, would ask councillors to lobby Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Wirral's four Labour MPs.

For their motion to be approved, the Tories would likely need the backing of Green Party and Liberal Democrat councillors.

Wirral's Labour group has been asked for a response to the motion.

The borough's Conservatives said the winter fuel payment, currently paid to all pensioners, was "a lifeline" and warned its removal risked "leaving many pensioners in financial hardship, including those with disabilities and long-term ill health".

Its motion noted government estimates that 58,800 pensioners in Wirral received winter fuel payments in 2023 but did not get pension credit.

Under the government's plans, about 10 million pensioners in Wales and England who are not eligible for pension credit or other means-tested benefits will lose between £100 and £300 each year.

Ministers have said the cuts were needed in order to help improve the state of the nation's public finances.

The government also pointed out that most pensioners would benefit from an upcoming rise in the state pension.

But the deputy leader of Wirral Council's Conservatives, Lesley Rennie, said: "Every government since 1997 has made sure that, no matter what else is going on, some of the most vulnerable in our society would be protected."

Pressure on the government has also come from pensioner Phil Simpson, who told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he felt older people were considered easy targets by politicians.

"It's not going to impact me but there are other ways to make the money up that they say is missing," he said. "There are other ways, and that is taxing the richest."

Labour currently has 29 seats on Wirral Council, compared with 17 and 14 respectively for the Conservatives and Greens. The Lib Dems have six councillors.