In defence of universal benefits and services

Why the winter fuel payment matters

It is, according to the Guardian’s editorial, ‘mean, unjust and politically inept.’ Labour’s decision to abolish the universal provision of pensioners’ winter fuel payments in favour of a means tested allowance that will automatically exclude millions of hard-pressed older people is the government’s first major controversy. Labour MPs face a huge backlash in their constituencies. It is no overstatement that for many this will set in stone how many people view the still-new government.

To means test the winter fuel payment will save just £1.4 billion. It is estimated that the number of people receiving the payment will fall from more than 11 million, to about 1.5 million, including many who are clearly in no sense well-off. The Chancellor’s decision will affect 86 per cent of pensioners – not just wealthiest but those on the basic state pension rate of £11,500 a year. In the North East local authority area of Gateshead, for example, it is estimated that over 31,000 pensioners are set to lose the allowance.

The winter fuel payment was a universal policy introduced by Gordon Brown that survived under the Tories. But it took Labour under Reeves and Keir Starmer just weeks to announce it will be means tested. 

What is particularly insidious about the government’s imposition of a means test for winter fuel payments is that it has naturally and automatically opened the door to arguments against universalism. Having announced the policy in July as a measure to cut costs, the government has inevitably fallen into a narrative that ‘targeting’ – means testing – is preferable to universal provision. Keir Starmer himself said on Kuenssberg on Sunday: ‘the Winter Fuel Payments, are now to be targeted. They were untargeted before and I think everybody thought that wasn't a particularly good system. So it needed to be targeted.’ On this he is wrong - very many people support a universal payment. At the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on the Monday night before the vote, Rachel Reeves was reported as arguing that to vote against the government’s change was to reject the notion of means testing it. One MP was said to believe this line had traction, since ‘everyone in that meeting agrees it's not right that millionaires get this payment.’ One new MP, Shaun Davies, has argued that the motion to reject the government plan would allow ‘rich pensioners like Alan Sugar to get the winter fuel payment.’ Across social media, supporters of the government are willingly using anti-universalist arguments. Ultimately that line of thought is of most use to the right of politics.

The problem with the narrative around ending the universal provision of the winter fuel payment is that the very same argument can be applied to any other universal benefit or service. If millionaires should not receive x benefit or service, what is the argument in favour of them receiving y or z? Logically, the same thing can be said about healthcare or concessionary travel exemptions like the Freedom Pass. The reason for universal provision is that it is the simplest mechanism to maximise a benefit for the largest number of people, binding in support for the welfare state and public services in the process. It eliminates the problem of people failing to claim for means-tested benefits and likewise avoids the trap of just failing to qualify for a benefit or service. The question of the rich in society is addressed in a different way, through progressive taxation. Universalism has been fought for by generations of labour movement activists and social reformers. The completely unnecessary ditching of the universal mechanism in this case – and the conscious use of ‘targeting’ and ‘means testing’ arguments - sets a dangerous ideological precedent for future debates as the government pursues its ‘tough choices.’

All of this comes at a time when quite contrary arguments have been building. For example, in London, Sadiq Khan has delivered universal free school meals in all primary schools, as has the Welsh Labour government. But through its actions over the winter fuel payment, Labour at a national level is legitimising the very arguments that are used against successful schemes like free school meals.

When a party of social democracy goes down the road of tearing up universal benefits it is bound to strengthen multiple damaging arguments. In the case of the winter fuel payments, a second insidious line of argument has broken out: many pensioners now feel pitted against those public sector workers who have recently won pay rises. It is now commonplace on the media and social media to hear the argument that workers have gained whilst pensioners’ universal payments have been targeted. The two have been counterposed in sections of the public debate, instead of a coalition being built. Again, that ultimately aids the right.

Given the government’s actions and its warnings about future choices in which things must get worse before they can get better, a broad campaign in defence of universal benefits and services is necessary.

In the process of getting its way on one universal benefit, the Labour government has done real harm.