Keir Starmer told elderly people are 'going to die' of cold by caller in live interview

Watch: Keir Starmer told 'people are going to die' after winter fuel payment cut

Sir Keir Starmer was confronted on a live radio show by a listener warning “people are going to die” because of his winter fuel payment cut.

A woman, named as 63-year-old Maxine, asked if the prime minister was going to U-turn “from a terrible decision”.

Starmer was speaking to BBC Radio Lincolnshire as part of a tour of local radio station interviews on Friday morning. Presenter Sean Dunderdale played him a clip of Maxine, who had appeared on the programme earlier, saying: “We just can't keep warm. People are going to die. Elderly people are literally going to die.

“How's he going to live with that? Is he going to have the courage to back down from a terrible decision?”

Dunderdale added: “She’s wearing extra layers, she can’t put the heating on this week, despite the cold weather, because of your decision to withdraw her winter fuel payment.” As a 63-year-old, Maxine wouldn’t be entitled to the winter fuel payment, which is only available to people born before 23 September, 1958.

But Starmer’s decision to restrict availability to the payment has once again come into focus amid the recent cold snap and Friday's announcement that energy bills will go up once again from January.

The winter fuel payment was previously available to anyone over state pension age. But in one of the government’s first major policy moves this summer, it limited access to the benefit, which is worth up to £300.

The payment is being restricted to only those claiming pension credit, with the aim of saving the public purse £1.5bn a year. But this has meant the number of pensioners in receipt of the payment has fallen by around nine million.

Starmer, responding to Maxine’s and Dunderdale’s comments, said: “I had to answer the question: ‘What difficult decisions can we make to ensure we can use our money most effectively?' We have got problems with the NHS, waiting lists are through the roof.”

In another interview with BBC Radio Merseyside, Starmer said it “makes sense to make the change” to winter fuel payments when asked why he was “picking a fight with the pensioners”.

“Without the change that we’re putting in place at the moment, the allowance goes to everyone, whether they need it or not, and therefore there are many who don’t need it because they’re relatively wealthy."

However, on BBC Radio WM, Starmer admitted it was a decision he would have preferred not to have made.

Asked if he would come to regret it, the PM said: “There are lots of decisions we had to make in the budget which, to be perfectly honest, I’d have preferred not to have had to make. But when you inherit a broken economy... very, very difficult decisions have to be made.”

Cut will put 100k in poverty, admits government

The squeeze on winter fuel payments could force 100,000 pensioners into poverty in 2026, according to the government’s own estimates.

This week, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall revealed the government’s assessment of the impact in a letter to MPs, but stressed the figures did not take into account plans to increase the numbers on pension credit.

Kendall said the government had been “forced” to limit the payment due to the “£22bn black hole” it blames the Conservatives for leaving behind.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has disputed Labour's "black hole" claims in part, saying that while some of the challenges facing it “genuinely appear to be greater" than anticipated, much of it was “entirely predictable".