Keir Starmer asked if more pensioners will get fuel payments next winter

Sir Keir Starmer is facing questions about whether his partial U-turn on limiting the winter fuel payment can be made in time to help pensioners through next winter.

The Prime Minister said on Wednesday that “as the economy improves” he wanted to look at widening eligibility for the payments worth up to £300.

Sir Keir suggested further details will come at a “fiscal event”, likely to be the next budget in the autumn.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Labour backbenchers are among those to ask how quickly the Government can implement the turnaround.

Officials are unable to say how many more pensioners would be eligible or if the policy will be altered in time for next winter.

The decision to means-test the previously universal payment was one of the first announcements by Chancellor Rachel Reeves after Labour’s landslide election victory last year, and has been widely blamed for the party’s collapse in support.

It was an issue Labour campaigners were challenged about on the doorsteps during May’s elections which saw the party lose councillors and the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election.

Mrs Badenoch has written to the Prime Minister demanding to know whether the reversal would “come into effect in time for payments to be made for this winter”, given a budget could be “six months away”.

In her letter, she warned: “Pensioners are typically living on fixed incomes. They need to be able to plan ahead. We have heard from many who have suffered through the past winter as a result of your Government’s callous decision to remove their winter fuel payments. Some have had to choose between heating and eating.”

Rachael Maskell, a Labour backbencher who has been outspoken about the decision, welcomed the movement from the Government.

But the York Central MP told the PA news agency pensioners will still lose out as the deadline to apply for pension credit – which could govern eligibility for the payment – is likely to fall around the same time as the budget.

Ms Maskell said: “It seems that the sequencing of this would preclude people this coming winter, unless they did something else to enable people to get it.

“Now that’s an assumption that it is going to be predicated on a pension credit. We just don’t know. But it could mean that people would then go cold for a further winter.”

The Times suggested pensioners could have to wait for more than a year to have the payment reinstated, citing Government sources worried about ageing computer systems.

Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown – who as chancellor introduced the universal winter fuel payment – suggested the richest pensioners could still not receive it.

“I think there is a case, for example, for people on the top rate of tax not receiving it, but that’s something the Government has got to decide,” he told Sky News.

Announcing the change of direction on Wednesday, Sir Keir said he understood “that people are still feeling the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis, including pensioners”.

He added: “As the economy improves, we want to make sure people feel those improvements in their days as their lives go forward. That is why we want to ensure that, as we go forward, more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments.”

The move could open the door for ministers to back down on an overhaul of disability benefits, which has seen a large number of Labour MPs threaten to rebel.

So far, senior ministers have been resolute that they will go ahead with the plans.

Ministers are also said to be considering scrapping the two-child benefit cap to win over Labour MPs, though Downing Street has insisted such a move would not be a “silver bullet” for ending child poverty.