Winter fuel payments will return, confirms Reeves, but not for all

MORE pensioners will receive the winter fuel allowance this winter - but payments will not be universal, the UK Government has said.

- VICKY SHAW, DAVID LYNCH and CHRISTOPHER McKEON

Chancellor Rachel Reeves told reporters that “more people will get winter fuel payment this winter’, adding that further details will be announced “as soon as we possibly can”.

She said: “People should be in no doubt that the means test will increase and more people will get winter fuel payment this winter.”

Ms Reeves also said that she would set out how to pay for any increase in the threshold for the winter fuel allowance at the next budget.

Asked whether she would tell the public if she planned to fund her commitments by raising taxes or cutting spending in other departments, the Chancellor said: “As we have been clear, on winter fuel we will set out how we will fund that at the next fiscal event. We will set out how everything will be paid for at the budget in the autumn but it’s important that everything that we do is funded, because that’s how people know that we can afford it.”

Meanwhile, Pensions Minister and Swansea West MP Torsten Bell told MPs that while more pensioners will be eligible, there is no prospect of returning to universal winter fuel payments.