KEIR Starmer has suffered the first parliamentary defeat of his premiership after peers voted to express their “regret” over mammoth cuts to pensioner benefits.
The Lords on Wednesday night passed a motion slamming the Government for axing the universal Winter Fuel Payment – and hit out at a “lack of transparency” about the decision, which critics said was rushed through Parliament.
The Prime Minister earlier in the day repeatedly refused to commit to publishing an impact assessment of the £1.4 billion per year cut – expected to strip 10 million pensioners of the benefit.
He has been criticised on all sides for seeking to “balance the books on the backs of pensioners” and the Tories highlighted in the Lords vote that the move came as Labour gave “above-inflation pay rises for unionised public sector professionals”.
The motion is non-binding on the Government, which passed the new measures through a vote on Tuesday.
Some 12 Labour MPs abstained on the motion, out of a total of 52 who skipped the vote. Just one MP Jon Trickett rebelled in earnest and defied a three-line whip to vote for a Conservative motion – backed by the LibDems and the SNP – calling for the cuts to be abandoned.
No MPs who defied the Government have suffered any official sanction, unlike the seven MPs who were suspended from Labour before the summer for voting to axe the two-child benefit cap.
The Lords motion was split largely along party lines, with Tory peers backing it and Labour peers – who are outnumbered by Conservative members in the upper house – opposing.
A separate motion, tabled by former pensioners minister and Tory peer Ros Altmann, which would have annulled the cuts failed after most peers abstained.
