Farage commits to reinstating winter fuel payment

Reform UK has said it will fully reinstate winter fuel payments to pensioners and scrap the two-child benefit cap, if the party gets into government.

The commitments - to be unveiled at a news conference next week - come after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced pressure from Labour MPs to change his approach to both policies.

By the time of the next general election there may be no need to reverse either policy.

Sir Keir has already announced plans to ease cuts to winter fuel payments - without saying when or how.

And ministers say he has privately indicated he would like if possible to find a way to scrap the two-child benefit cap - although a formal decision may be many months away.

The intervention by Nigel Farage - first reported in the Sunday Telegraph - will highlight and magnify the increasingly awkward divisions over policy within Labour.

Reform UK said they would pay for their new policies by cutting net zero projects and scrapping hotels for asylum seekers.

A source told the paper it was "already outflanking Labour" on both issues. Although Labour had also included a commitment in its election manifesto to end the use of asylum hotels by the end of this parliament, the most recent figures show it has increased since the party came to power.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who was interviewed on BBC One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, did not confirm if the two-child benefit cap would be scrapped nor if the changes to winter fuel payments would be made this year.

Asked about Reform's proposal to fully reinstate the fuel payments and scrap the benefit cap, she said: "Farage says a lot of things."

More than 10 million pensioners lost out on winter fuel payments, worth up to £300, when the pension top-up became restricted to only people receiving pension credit last year.

But Sir Keir has announced plans to ease the cuts in a U-turn following mounting political pressure in recent weeks.

The prime minster said the policy would be changed at the autumn Budget, adding ministers would only "make decisions we can afford". He did not lay out exactly what this would entail.

The winter fuel payment is a lump sum of £200 a year for households with a pensioner under 80, or £300 for households with a pensioner over 80.

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On the two-child benefit cap, the Observer reported Sir Keir had privately backed plans to scrap it.

The paper's report that the PM was asking the Treasury to find ways to pay for it came alongside growing unrest and threats of rebellion among backbench Labour MPs.

The policy - which prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children born after April 2017 - was introduced in 2017 by the then-Conservative government and is estimated to affect 1.5 million families.

But the government's child poverty strategy, which had been due for publication in the spring, has been delayed as it is still being worked on and measures including scrapping the cap are being considered.

Labour MPs have long been calling for it to be axed, with seven of them suspended from the parliamentary party for voting against the government on an amendment to do so.

Four were readmitted in February but the remainder continue to sit as independent MPs.

Pressure to remove the limit has remained on the government from senior Labour figures, including former prime minister Gordon Brown, who said it was "condemning children to poverty".

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who also appeared on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, said that any move to scrap the cap would be "nonsense".

She said the country could not afford to make such a concession and accused Sir Keir and Farage of making promises they could not keep.

"We put that cap in at a time when the economy was in a better place - we cannot afford [to remove it]. People are just making promises, throwing out all sorts of things to please people when they won't be delivered.

"And that is why we have so much apathy, that's why the public are angry - because they are sick and tired of politicians who make promises they cannot deliver and I will not do that."