This week, 100,000 kids were lifted out of poverty. The Government’s announcement of free school meals for all children in homes receiving universal credit (rather than just those whose household income is a horrifyingly low £7,400 before benefits) will nudge down the nation’s shameful tally of 4.3 million children living in poverty.
All the research shows these free school meals will help children learn, improve life chances, and ease pressures on struggling families. It’s a policy with economic, social and moral strength. Amazing.
But let’s not talk about that – let’s talk about pensioners and day 311 of the winter fuel fiasco. Which is what most of the national news titles did on their front pages today, followed by the broadcast media. Only the Mirror splashed free school meals. The Daily Star went with the Holy Grail turning up in St Albans.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Because until this weeping ulcer of a policy problem is cut out, it will continue to poison. And even then, it will leave a scar.
Can this Government ever fully recover? Anything is possible. But this was a policy introduced just days after the election and it has defined all that has followed. The failings of the policy are well rehearsed (although presumably not in government prior to 29 July last year). But let’s quickly run through them.
The moral failing of the winter fuel payment being stripped from 10 million people to only the 1.5 million on pension credit was it left those on the cusp of eligibility having to choose between heating and eating. It left many millions more only slightly better off, wondering why they had grafted their entire lives without ever receiving a penny of state help, only to become the very first victims of a Labour government street mugging.
The political failing was that it all happened as an opportunist populist was endlessly pointing at those benefitting from the state in the form of asylum seekers, DEI operatives, and the workshy.
It undermined faith in the basic principle of the welfare state – reciprocity. You put in/ you get out. And they felt done over by Keir Starmer, a steady looking bloke they had put their faith in after that last lot, only for his government to turn into another episode of Angela Rippon’s Rip Off Britain.
They – and all those in sympathy – made their concerns clear in last month’s local elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. It left any Labour MP with a sub-15,000 majority shivering from winter fuel fever dreams.
Of course, many pensioners neither needed nor wanted the allowance, while the Treasury desperately needed that £1.5bn for the NHS, schools and pay deals. (And don’t forget the £22bn black hole).
Now a solution is being considered where it will be returned to everyone, but the top half of pensioners with higher incomes – about 5 million people – will pay it back through their tax returns. In which case, why on earth didn’t they do that in the first place?
Even this, which seems a generally sensible solution, will have its problems –more pensioners will be dragged into paying tax and there are concerns grieving families could be chased for unpaid tax after a bereavement.
This solution will cost about £700m. There will be not a word of thanks for it from pensioners. It’s a very human response to only notice the things you lose – not those you are given. And human responses become more, shall we say, “vigorous” with age.
Another option being considered, as revealed here in The i Paper, is that more than a million pensioners on housing and disability benefits will be returned the payment. This will cost less – about £300m – but will please less too.
A big mistake requires a big reversal, particularly in the light of Nigel Farage promising a full return of the benefit. No matter that this is just more of his fag packet economics – for pensioners, it shows he understands the moral argument.
Anger about the winter fuel payment has, I believe, radicalised millions towards more extreme right-wing politics. Those who bit their tongue at the rise of identity politics and kept quiet about immigration concerns for fear of starting a row with the grandkids woke up with the winter fuel cut to the sense that all their work, all their beliefs, all their faith in Britain had been chucked back at them. They were nothing more than a drain on the state. And the younger generation, too busy looking at their phones to give up a seat on the bus, were happy to see their one state benefit snatched from them.
The concern is that once such a sense takes hold it will not simply disappear by returning money (which was already theirs) and muttering a begrudging “we hear you”.
Some good news is that whichever solution is chosen for returning the allowance, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed the payment of up to £300 will be with older people in time for this winter. There had initially been concerns it could take until the winter of 2026 to reinstate.
I believe Reeves when she said this week: “I didn’t want to come into politics because I care passionately about fiscal rules.” Admittedly, it was imperative the markets believed she cared about such things. But now the nation needs to understand what she and Starmer care about.
There is an opportunity to put right the wrong of winter fuel with a proper programme around ending child poverty and setting up a new generation for success.
Free school meals should be just the very beginning, not the end, of this. It won’t undo all the political damage of the winter fuel row, but at least once this policy ulcer starts to heal then the Government can focus its attention – and the nation’s attention – on policies that care.
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