Keir Starmer defends winter fuel cut

Ahead of a key vote in parliament tomorrow, Keir Starmer has defended his "tough" decision to remove the winter fuel payment from most pensioners. 

The decision to take away the payment, which is worth between £200-£300, from all but the poorest pensioners was made in July by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and will be voted on by MPs on Tuesday night.

There is "no chance" of tomorrow's vote being lost as few on the government benches are expected to vote against it, said The Guardian. However, a "significant number of absences" would indicate the "extent of disquiet" over the policy, which rebel MPs fear could lose the party votes and which one described as "a shitshow".

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Speaking on the BBC's "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg" in his first major interview at Downing Street yesterday, the prime minister said his new government was "going to have to be unpopular", but insisted he was "fixing the foundations" and that those in need would still get help.

Up to 50 MPs are believed to be struggling to support the policy, with about 30 expected to refuse to back the decision. Tomorrow's Commons vote has become a "key test of Starmer's authority", said The Times.

The PM has so far declined to say whether Labour MPs who vote against the cut will be suspended from the party. It was, he told Kuenssberg, "a matter for the chief whip". However, said The Guardian, after seven Labour MPs had the whip suspended for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, it's assumed that a similar rebellion would have the same outcome.

As well as MP discontent, Starmer is also facing pressure from trade union leaders. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham told BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme the government should be "big enough and brave enough to do a U-turn", while Paul Nowak, head of the Trades Union Congress, said on BBC "Breakfast" the chancellor should "rethink" her plans.

The cut, which "may have looked acceptable, even sensible on paper", looks increasingly like a "rookie mistake" on the part of the chancellor, said The Independent. Not that the government is "not entitled to make unpopular decisions", but if it does so "it needs to be aware of the likely response and be ready with its arguments", and in this instance "neither appears to have been the case".