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Keir Starmer Hit By Labour Commons Rebellion Over Plan To Axe Winter Fuel Payments

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Keir Starmer has suffered his biggest Commons rebellion since becoming prime minister as Labour MPs made clear their anger at the decision to means test winter fuel payments to pensioners.

A total of 52 Labour backbenchers failed to vote in favour of the controversial policy, while one – Jon Trickett – voted against it.

In addition, five former Labour MPs who were suspended by the party in July for not backing its policy on the two-child benefit cap, also voted against the government.

However, the Tories’ attempt to cancel the policy was still comfortably defeated by 348 votes to 228, even though Labour’s 167-seat majority was slashed.

Rachel Reeves announced shortly after becoming chancellor that the winter fuel payment – which is worth up to £300 – would only be paid to those receiving pension credit.

That means that around 10 million old people who used to receive it will no longer do so.

Labour has said the move is necessary to help fill the £22 billion “black hole” in the government’s finances it says the Tories left behind.

But critics have said the move will plunge many old people into poverty and could even lead to some of them dying from the cold.

Labour sources insisted that only 12 of the 52 MPs who failed to vote with the government had not had their absence authorised.

Explaining his decision to rebel, Jon Trickett said: “I fear that removing the payment from pensioners will mean that many more will fall into poverty this winter.

“We know that the consequences of pensioner poverty are devastating. It can even be a matter of life and death.

“I could not in good conscience vote to make my constituents poorer. I will sleep well tonight knowing that I voted to defend my constituents.”

Tory chairman Richard Fuller said: “The country should not forget that Labour made a political choice to make this callous decision that will hurt pensioners just as their energy bills are set to increase this winter.”

Lib Dem work and pensions spokesperson Wendy Chamberlain said: “Millions of pensioners will be left deeply worried about how they will get by this winter with this cut to the winter fuel payment.

“So many pensioners are already facing another winter of a cost of living crisis and this will make things worse.

“The damage left by the Conservatives to our economy is unforgivable but cutting payments to vulnerable pensioners is no way to bring about the change the country deserves.

“We’ll keep fighting this cut tooth and nail anyway we can, we’ll continue to be a constructive opposition to the new Government and we’re fighting for the real change people want to see.”

SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “Voters in Scotland were promised ‘change’ but instead the Labour Party is wielding the austerity axe and cutting billions of pounds from public services and household incomes.”

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Wes Streeting Claims NHS Will Effectively ‘Go Bust’ If Labour Does Not Act

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The health secretary Wes Streeting has claimed the NHS will effectively “go bust” unless the government takes action, and soon.

The cabinet minister’s remarks come ahead of a landmark report into the health service from Lord Darzi, a leading surgeon, commissioned by the government in July.

Darzi’s report is expected to say the NHS reduced its “routine healthcare activity by a far greater percentage than other health systems” in many key areas during the Covid pandemic – and that the service is still suffering as a result.

The crossbench peer, who was a minister in the last Labour government but who has since left the party, has also warned the NHS was “seriously weakened” by disastrous government policies over the last decade.

Speaking to LBC’s Sunday with Lewis Goodall, Streeting said: “If we do not act now to make the right long-term decisions, we will end up with the NHS effectively going bust.”

He added that Darzi’s report will show the NHS was “so badly prepared and resourced before the pandemic, we ended up cancelling more operations and appointments and procedures than any other major country”.

While he suggested that investment and reform were needed to “deliver results” within the health service, Streeting added that the NHS was “broken by the botched reforms of the previous government”.

PM Keir Starmer also told the BBC in his first major interview since getting into No.10 that the NHS had been “broken” by past governments.

“Everybody watching this who has used the NHS, or whose relatives have, knows that it’s broken. That is unforgivable, the state of our NHS,” he said.

Starmer added: “Our job now, through Lord Darzi, is properly to understand how that came about and bring about the reforms, starting with the first steps, the 40,000 extra appointments.”

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“[It is] unforgivable, the state of our NHS”

In his first major interview in Number 10 Prime Minister Keir Starmer tells the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the Conservatives “broke\" the NHS ahead of a government review of the servicehttps://t.co/cLzMdI7zUv pic.twitter.com/L7JzRIQgD4

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 7, 2024

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“[It is] unforgivable, the state of our NHS”

In his first major interview in Number 10 Prime Minister Keir Starmer tells the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the Conservatives “broke” the NHS ahead of a government review of the servicehttps://t.co/cLzMdI7zUv pic.twitter.com/L7JzRIQgD4

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 7, 2024

Meanwhile, shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins has denied the Tories had broken the service, instead pointing to Darzi’s findings that more than 100,000 infants were left waiting for more than six hours in A&E departments in 2023.

She told broadcasters: “Labour’s instinct is to politicise children’s health rather than provide solutions and reform our NHS.”

A Tory Party spokesman also defended their record in government, telling the Guardian: “The NHS has more doctors, more nurses, more funding in real terms and is looking after more people than ever before.”

They added that the NHS looked after millions during the pandemic, and rolled out vaccines “faster than anyone else in the world” – and set up the Public Inquiry.

They added: “It is odd that this former Labour minister and peer feels he is in a better position to opine on Covid than the Public Inquiry.”

The health spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, said that “years and years of Conservative failure have brought the NHS to its knees” and called for “an emergency health budget from this new government.”

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