first of all thank you for your messages about Terry Christian from Tuesday's episode and if you needed any more Oasis content in your life and you haven't heard it it's in the feed now to another 60-some who divides opinion today we have no other choice given the situation that we're in those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heavier burden this is Liz back in for Neil So if the Prime Minister really does think that why was one of his first m moves to take money away from 10 million pensioners I mean it was basically Labour's first big policy announcement scrapping the winter fuel allowance which is about 200 300 quid a year to help with energy bills for all but the very poorest pensioners and it's not gone down very well at all older people struggling with the cost of living want to know why they've been singled out some labor MPS are already plotting a rebellion and the government's only been in power for eight weeks it's just not a good look when winter is on its way today we ask how labor got itself into a bit of a mess and if there's a way out of it so the first person that we should speak to today I think is our political correspondent Serena Barker Singh she's been in Westminster and covering a big meeting uh the people that are there are ministers the big energy companies Charities uh people like citizens advice Bureau and they are warning that there are lots of vulnerable people who are just not going to be able to cope with bills uh rising and they will rise because the energy price cap has gone up and that means that bills will go up as well by about 10% on average from October so Serena tell us about this meeting first of all essentially it's because they're very aware that this winter although Energy prices are down from sort of the peak that we saw about two years ago two things are happening so there's a temp % rise to the cap which keeps prices low and then also for pensioners Rachel re has recently cut the winter fuel allow so they're essentially worried that maybe in the winter there might be uh this perfect storm when people start using central heating again and using much more energy that they might be struggling to pay their bills and so do we know what came out of that meeting they're aware that this crunch Point might happen obviously they've all got different competing issues right so the the government are trying to save that they think 1.4 billion pounds with customers winter fuel allowance the energy companies are worried how customers are going to pay and then also you've got uh people like offg energy UK in the middle who are kind of squaring these two competing demand and how can everyone get what they need out of it I think energy companies are saying there are things that they can help so they can have payment plans for example they are giving specific uh advice to customers and also longer payment plans for example the government are trying to get um as many pension is eligible for pension credits to sign up as they can uh but essentially they know that some people will fall through the cracks and some for some people this winter will be quite difficult winter for them so it was a bit of an ideas meeting basically it was like these are the problems these are the potential Solutions we haven't had a huge Flagship policy that's come out of it today but we we may do in the future yeah okay so let's go back to this winter fuel payment MPS are telling me that they're hearing about it on the doorstep from their older constituents who are saying hang on we just voted in a lab government we're struggling with the cost of living and now they're taking hundreds of pounds off US every year we're not rich well yeah I think it did come as a surprise to a lot of people as you say and it's quite a lot of people that will be affected so aguk think about 2 million pensioners will be in serious trouble which means they'll struggle to heat their homes this winter usually you have like a tapering off system in in these kind of policies so you gradually allow people to get to grips with this so they don't feel like immediate pain of like losing hundreds of pounds yeah exactly so this is quite extreme that they've just suddenly said all these people are no longer get again so I think it is quite surprising but also I think what's happening and you'll see from K st's speech yesterday they're essentially saying the last 14 years of conservative rule were much much worse than we thought we've got this massive massive hole and we're going to have to do things that we didn't even conceive of having to do and that's kind of a way of explaining why they might have to do some uncomfortable things that's their big message now and that's what they're going to be teeing up into the the budget they're giving strong signals that it's going to be quite a painful budget yeah so it sort of plays into that whole Narrative of like you know there's no money we have to make these difficult decisions but then also there are rumors that they have actually done internal polling on this and they says that there's kind of broad support even among older voters and older pensioners that this is a a necessary policy at this time so they've sort of tested the waters on this and they think they probably might get away with it give me an idea though of the labor party now has a massive majority they've got loads and loads of new MPS that have come in in a general election which is a huge Victory most of them will be loyal to K stor and Rachel Reeves some labor mpes are really annoyed about it they might try to force a rebellion they might do something in Parliament is there any real danger to the labor party because they've got this big majority does that give them basically a cussion and they they don't have to worry about rebellions well there's a couple things the conservatives have uh tabled a early day motion if it does get selected then that could be a way for labor and pees who don't like this to Rebel the green party are also against it so you could have this broad church I guess of opposition towards it you're right in terms of votes that they do have a massive majority and it's there isn't really Jeopardy in terms of getting stuff through at this early stage but I think it might become one of these things that is is a moral issue right so we saw it over the two child benefit cap you did see some labor MPS go against the Whip and they did actually lose the whip as a result but I think it's not a great look for the lab party to be kicking MPS out of their party for voting on issues that historically labor have been fighting for and I think we also should be alive to the idea that these are choices that although we don't have money to do everything they've chosen these specific policies of where to cut okay are we getting even close to kind of U-turn territory watering it down type of territory or would you expect that because of the backlash that's happened we'll get a bit of something maybe in the budget from Rachel Reeves to sort of head off a full-on rebellion yeah potentially the opposition is coming from a lot of angles so I think I saw Martin Lewis you know the consumer God essentially you never want to be on the wrong side of exactly he's kind of touches kind of public opinion in a way that politicians can't sometimes and he says they need to rethink the criteria that it's too narrow that this you know the lack of tapering is a big an issue and he also says he's going to go meet Rachel Ree and trying to convince her on that point so I think the opposition is coming from a a lot of different angles and lots of people are giving Rachel Reeves different options to this policy so yeah if we can talk about it in terms of watering down but changing it or tweaking it so that it's not this very very narrow scope of people who were still eligible for the winter fuel payments I I think we could definitely see a potential change in that so as Serena just said there are lots of people coming forward with solutions to this problem of rising energy bills and we will be speaking to one of them after this break so he wasn't at today's big meeting but he probably should have been because Sam Robinson from the think tank the social Market Foundation knows this policy area inside out and has put forward some detailed suggestions on how the government can support those who are struggling first of all Sam break this down for us who will be affected by the government's plans and how much money is this going to free up so the winter fuel payment is a universal payment it goes to anyone over the age of 65 at the moment it reaches 11.5 million households or so and what the government have been saying is to restrict the win fuel payment to only those on pension credit and that will take it from roughly 11.5 million households getting the payment to just 1.5 million potentially there has been discussion about this for quite a long time hasn't there because this has never been a particularly efficient way to support people who can't afford their energy bills because we've heard stories about the winter fuel payment being handed out to millionaires who have wanted for there to be a process for them to hand it back because they just simply do not need it yeah there's there's been lots of anecdotal stories uh about people getting the the winter fuel payment and making a point of its inefficiency by you buying a nice bottle of wine or something with the money which is why lots of policy people over the years have been saying it's bad way of spending money basically we're spending currently two billion or so on that at the moment and the changes that the labor govern government are talking about at the moment would probably save something like 1.4 billion or so so you've been looking at an alternative scheme that already exists that you think would be more efficient way of helping people who are struggling uh with their bills and could actually save more money than these planned Cuts is that right so there's another scheme called the warm home discount which also aims to help people with energy bills and that's open to people with pension credit or on people on means tested benefits who who have high predicted energy costs and that's arguably a much better way of targeting support you're talking about people who are having to Fork out lots of their money on energy bills the problem with the warm home discount at the moment is it's just a flat 150 pounds that households get and since it was introduced in the early coalition days it's really fallen behind inflation and energy costs so it's not giving enough support and also it doesn't really take into account the different levels of need that households may have for support with energy bills so what we're saying is a better way of directing the spending that that was going on the winter fuel payments is to expand the warm home discount so households are getting more meaningful support with their energy bills and we also talk about breaking it into bands so you know households with higher needs can get higher rebate with the warm home discount now lots of MPS will be listening with interest to experts like Sam who are setting out other ways that people uh can get help and support this winter including labor MP for York Central Rachel mascal so first of all Rachel I mean you were one of the MPS that just stood for the labor party at the general election and there was this message coming across from Kia starmer and Rachel Reeves loud and clear there are going to have to be tough decisions made because the public finances are in a really bad way now they have made a tough decision and you are one of the MPS that are opposing it so how did you get into this position well first of all we knew the public finances weren't good and then to discover 21.9 billion missing um not declared to the office of budget responsibility showed there were in dire straights the public finances and of course Rachel Reeves had to take really decisive action in July so taking those decisions was incredibly tough however within the manifesto we did did say that we would protect people so of course what we need to do is dig deep into those labor values and to ensure that we are protecting the most vulnerable K starma said that those with the broader shoulders should carry that greater burden and of course when we're talking about vulnerable pensioners that certainly isn't them so we need to protect people this winter to ensure that they don't go cold but let me get this right I mean you're talking about protecting the most vulnerable the winter fuel payment is not being scrapped it's being means tested and the poorest pensioners will be protected they will continue to get this payment so what is it that you're arguing to completely u-turn on this on this policy decision there were 880,000 pensioners who aren't yet claiming the pension credit and that's been a stubborn figure so about 63% of pensioners eligible for it do get it but we know above the pension credit threshold there are many people which still experience fuel poverty and that's borne out by many of the organizations identifying that actually we need to lift that threshold now I think many of us would say that there are alternative ways of addressing this for instance through the taxation systems so it's a flat rate payment um and therefore there is no differentiation between the rich and the poor who get it um it certainly could experience that that uh those people in the lowest incomes get the greater share of it so I think we need to be creative okay so you're not suggesting that you want to see the winter fuel payment back as it was as a universal benefit you just want to see more uh done to protect the most vulnerable who are going to struggle to pay their energy bills this winter is that right well that's right I don't want anyone to experience fuel poverty this winter you don't want to go back to a situation where you know millionaires are getting a winter fuel payment of a couple of hundred quid that you know they spend on an expensive bottle of wine oh absolutely there are many people which don't need to claim the winter fuel allowance as I say there's different ways of clawing that money back if it is is seen as a universal benefit or to ensure it's better targeted the question is as we're on the curb of um those cold temperatures creeping in is what can be done within this window of time for this winter and then of course we need a proper discussion around fuel poverty for future years as well the constituents the people that are actually struggling to pay their bills what are you hearing from people because you're you're in the constituency now um You must be speaking to people on a daily basis who are struggling what are they saying to you they the emails to read and letters to read when they're from constituents who are literally writing their budgets in front of me and telling me how they can't afford to pay their their um energy bills people write to you and say this is how much money I spend on my heating this is what I spend on food and you have to read through that and think God they've got no wiggle room there absolutely and it is really heart rendering because they literally are making the hardest budgetary decisions of anybody at all because um we know from the research from the U regulator that there's about 11 million people who have had to make difficult choices to pay their energy bills it's going to be even harder not least because the energy price cap has also risen in the last week meaning from the 1 of October the average uh household Energy bill will go up by £49 a year so people are experiencing a real squeeze that's dangerous and last year um the uel poverty Coalition highlights that um nearly 5,000 people died because of the cold in our country what kind of society is that that allows for that and of course the cold does prey on older people because it's very hard to attain your body temperature when you're old and as a result of that you are likely to have higher fuel costs and that's ultimately why Gordon Brown introduced um the wind fuel payment um when he was um the chancellor because he didn't want to see older people suffer from the C anymore and we've got to make sure that we continue in that Spirit many of the the people that you speak to that are struggling to pay their bills they will have just voted labor they must be a bit disappointed that this is their the first policy that we've seen from this government right disappointment doesn't really describe how people are feeling they're feeling frightened because they're just trying to make the sums work out and they can't and labor Deep In Our Roots is about addressing the inequality in our society ensuring people have got sufficiency in their budgets to pay for Essentials heating is an essential and it will keep people from the doors of the NHS if people are able to heat their homes so we have got to make an intervention and I'm sure Rachel Reeves will be thinking very hard at the moment about how she can secure people this winter so that they are safe from fuel deprivation and are you and your colleagues been disappointed you were knocking on doors saying vote for K sta vote for uh a labor government and now you have to kind of defend this policy it's not a good place to be is it when you're on I've heard from my my colleagues across the country and they're deeply concerned about their constituents too so this is a broad concern which colleagues are sharing and aside from more help from government which is what we tend to talk about in politics what about the big energy companies and the profits that they make and the incredible salaries that they pay themselves and the dividends and all that um would you like to see the government be much much tougher on that well you're right it's because we know that the energy producers make tens of billions of pounds in profit and if we are talking about those with the broader shoulders they absolutely need to make uh a greater contribution they're not staring at their their pennies and wondering how on Earth they're going to pay their bills they're absolutely raking it in on the back of the poor as well as all of us so they have got to make their contribution that's why I've called for social tariffs so that the energy companies make their contribution The Producers not just the retail side of it make their contribution to protect those most vulnerable and ensure that people can afford their heating this winter thank you for listening today you can always email us at skynews Daily sky. I'm liis baat and I'll be back again tomorrow I'll see you then