The Conservative Party has been exerting pressure on the government to publish an effect assessment of the plan, which will result in a reduction of the number of receivers from around 10.8 million during the winter of last year to an anticipated 1.5 million this year.
Keir Starmer has stated that there has been no impact assessment conducted to see how the decision to deprive millions of pensioners of their winter fuel subsidies will effect them.
In order to assist in filling a “black hole” in the public finances that cost £22 billion, the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the decision to conduct a means test on the payments, which may be valued up to £300.
When reporters asked Sir Keir about whether or not an impact assessment would be published, he responded by saying, “There isn’t a report on my desk that somehow we’re not showing, that I’m not showing, as simple as that.” Sir Keir was travelling with reporters to Washington, DC.
In addition, he emphasised that the government was not legally obligated to produce one.
A spokeswoman for Downing Street stated that some statistical analysis had been done but that there was no information regarding the potential impact that the change could have on vulnerable retirees.
gender,The spokeswoman went on to say that there was a legal obligation to take into account the “equality implications” of any new policy development. “That happened in the usual way to assess the proportion of protected characteristics, such as age and gender, who claim winter fuel payments,” she said.
“The government will be ensuring that those who are most vulnerable and should be receiving support are receiving it, and that is why there is a huge effort to try and convert people onto pension credit,” the spokeswoman said in response to a question about whether or not an assessment should have been done to determine whether or not the change could have caused harm to elderly people.
“And also, we want people to be applying for the wider support, which is also there for the most vulnerable.”
The administration has been under pressure from the Conservatives to produce an effect assessment of the plan that will cut the number of receivers from over 10.8 million during the winter of 2017. This year, the number of recipients is expected to be approximately 1.5 million.
Rishi Sunak, the leader of the opposition, posed two questions to Sir Keir at the Prime Minister’s Questions session on Wednesday, asking him whether or not he will publish an effect assessment on the policy.
Mr. Sunak further stated: “Today, pensioners watching will have seen that the prime minister has repeatedly refused to admit or to publish the consequences of his decision, and we will continue holding him to account for that.”
The prime minister made the accusation that the leader of the Conservative Party had “no contrition, no responsibility for the economic black hole, the broken NHS, the prison crisis, and the ruinous legacy of 14 years of failure.”