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Downing Street is actively investigating changes to the controversial winter fuel payment cut over growing concerns about the policy’s deep unpopularity among voters.
No 10 has stepped up its work on reviewing the policy by carrying out internal polling and focus groups on how voters would respond to potential modifications to it.
The Guardian first revealed two weeks ago that Downing Street was rethinking the controversial cut and considering whether to increase the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, axed the payment from 10 million pensioners within weeks of taking office, arguing that it was no longer affordable because the Conservatives had left a £22bn black hole in the country’s finances.
The benefit, which is worth up to £300, is now means-tested and only available to people who are in receipt of pension credit and some other benefits.
The decision has been hugely unpopular with voters and has been blamed for some of Labour’s loss of support in the English local elections and the Runcorn and Helsby byelection earlier this month.
Keir Starmer did not deny that he was reconsidering the policy this week. Speaking while on a trip to Albania, Starmer said: “We took difficult decisions, but the right decisions, at the budget, including the decision that we took on winter fuel.”
“We are now seeing the benefits of that in the interest rate cuts and the growth figures. They were difficult decisions but the right decisions.”
Simon Francis, the coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said that “any U-turn is welcome, but what matters now is the detail, especially if winter fuel payments are not restored to all pensioners.
“We need to see the pension credit threshold raised significantly, a taper system introduced to stop people missing out on winter fuel payments for being just £1 over the line, and wider targeting of this support, including for those on non-means-tested disability benefits or carer’s allowance. Above all, ministers must learn lessons from this scandalous decision.”
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection and 677 council seats this month, has pledged to reverse the cut.
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In the wake of the local election results, the Labour Red Wall group of about 45 MPs urged ministers to “act now” to win back voters in northern England and the Midlands. They said it was not “weak” to respond to issues raised by the public, including the winter fuel payment cut.
The policy has also faced public criticism from senior Labour figures including Eluned Morgan, the Welsh first minister. Morgan said last week that voters were “very frustrated” by the cut and that “it’s the number one issue that comes up on the doorstep” in Wales.
Any change to the policy could be announced as soon as next month, with Reeves due to deliver a spending review on 11 June.
Meanwhile, Starmer is facing the biggest rebellion of his premiership next month over separate cuts to disability benefits, with dozens of MPs warning last week that they were “impossible to support”.
