Winter fuel payment cuts designed to ‘target support at people who need it’, says Ed Miliband

The government’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners is unpopular even inside the party’s conference hall.

Today the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband tried to turn the focus to Labour’s warm homes plan, promising to lift more than a million renters out of fuel poverty by raising required standards in rented homes.

Cathy Newman: You’re promising clean power by 2030 still.

Ed Miliband: Yes.

Cathy Newman: Give us a sense of how much the taxpayers can be on the hook for that and how much you’re hoping you’ll get from business?

Ed Miliband: Most of clean power by 2030 will come from private investment because there are massive barriers in the way, in planning, in grid and supply chains. And it’s removing those barriers that is crucial to that. But you’re right. What we announced today is really important, which is to demand proper energy efficiency standards in both the private rented sector and the social rented sector, in council housing and housing association housing. That will take a million people, million families out of fuel poverty. It’s something you’ll remember, Cathy, that the last Conservative government was going to do, then Rishi Sunak abandoned it about a year ago. And it’s about proper standards. And it shows this government is getting on with the job of actually cutting bills for people and this will help cut bills.

Cathy Newman: You’ve got quite a job on that 2030 date, haven’t you. You talked about the lack of grid capacity, shortage of skilled workers. Is that date set in stone. I know you like an Ed Stone.

Ed Miliband: Absolutely. What we’ve done since we came to office is we have shown the ability to act at speed. Lifting the onshore wind ban, consenting more solar power, Cathy, in two and a bit months than the Tories did, the Conservatives did, in 14 years. The most successful renewable auction in history run on our watch, setting up Great British Energy. And it’s all about getting off dependence on fossil fuels and giving the control and the certainty that clean power gives us. And we’re getting on with that mission.

Cathy Newman: And your department is key to Rachel Reeves’ vision, which she set out in the hall. I’ll just remind you, I’m sure you were listening avidly. She talked about shovels on the ground, cranes in the sky, the sounds and sights of the future.

Ed Miliband: That was a great phrase.

Cathy Newman: Well was it a bit dystopian, I mean, a bit weird to be dreaming about cranes on the horizon.

Ed Miliband: No, but look, I thought it was a great speech, and look, what Rachel was saying, well, I think two things she was saying. One, this is about jobs. I was energy secretary 15 years ago. What’s changed about today is this is the economic opportunity of the 21st century. That’s why the chancellor of the exchequer is talking about it. That’s why Keir will be talking about it tomorrow. And it is about those good jobs at decent wages that the British people have been crying out for, for so long. That’s the first thing. And secondly, she said something very important about capital investment.

Cathy Newman: Yes, I was going to come to that. On capital spending, which she hinted very strongly will increase, sell to sceptics in the Treasury why you should ease up on the borrowing rules to raise capital spending, for example, in your department?

Ed Miliband: The decisions on the fiscal rules are obviously a matter for the chancellor. But her saying, and it’s worth saying to your viewers, what she said, she said it can’t be seen as simply a cost any more, but investment must be seen as a benefit to the country. Why? Because how are we going to get growth? Growth is a central mission of this government. The only way we get growth is investment. It means private investment. But what we know from around the world, from the Biden administration, from elsewhere, is that public investment is a crucial accompaniment to the private investment. And that is a very radical thing that the chancellor of the exchequer was saying today.

Cathy Newman: Radical, and also means easing up on your borrowing rules, doesn’t it? That’s what it means?

Ed Miliband: I know far more than to get involved in the setting of the fiscal rules. That’s Rachel. She’s absolutely committed…

Cathy Newman: That’s what it means. When you quoted Biden. That’s what it means.

Ed Miliband: She is absolutely committed to her fiscal rules. But what she’s saying is significant because it is saying… what she’s saying is that we’ve got to think about the long-term benefits of the country from investing in our country’s future. And people have been saying, look, we need hope. That was a speech full of hope. ‘Prudence for a purpose’, as Gordon Brown might have called it.

Cathy Newman: Exactly. It was a very Brownite speech, and you’d know because he was your boss. But we’ve talked about the hope. Let’s bring you back down to earth with the gloom now, because this winter fuel payments, she made clear she wasn’t going to ease up on those cuts. I mean, are you scared to hear the truth about the scale of opposition because you put off this debate here? Why not let people have their say?

Ed Miliband: Not at all. I’ll leave the conference arrangements to other people. But what Rachel is saying is, this isn’t a decision she wanted to take, but she faced this massive black hole in terms of the inheritance. And she felt, and I support her in this decision, she felt she couldn’t justify a situation where winter fuel payment goes to everybody, including the richest in our society. And that’s why she took the difficult decision. But just set against that, Cathy, is the basic state pension rising in line with earnings, not prices. Something that never happened when the winter fuel payment was introduced. The drive that Liz Kendall, my colleague, has embarked upon, to get people to take up the pension credit. Hundreds of thousands of people not getting the pension credit.

Cathy Newman: She’s right to stick to her guns?

Ed Miliband: Absolutely. And what she’s trying to do is to make sure that she targets support at those who need it absolutely most.

Cathy Newman: The whole conference has been slightly overshadowed so far by this row over freebies. You received Glastonbury tickets for yourself and a family member. You’ve received theatre tickets. Why not draw a line under this and say, now you’re ministers, you’re going to pay not only for your own clothes, which seems reasonable, but also your own tickets to things like that Glastonbury?

Ed Miliband: Hang on a minute, Cathy. I was speaking at Glastonbury and the tickets came with me speaking at an event at Glastonbury.

Cathy Newman: They were paid for by a music copyright group.

Ed Miliband: I let other people judge what I am doing. But I think we owe it to the British people to talk about how we’re actually going to change their lives…

Cathy Newman: Now you’re a minister, you’re not taking free theatre tickets, right?

Ed Miliband: …Not whether I went to a music festival. I mean, come off it, Cathy.

Cathy Newman: Theatre tickets? Now you’re a minister, will you just say, I’ll pay my way?

Ed Miliband: Look, I went with a friend of mine to a fundraiser for the Donmar Warehouse Theatre.

Cathy Newman: There are a few others, to be fair.

Ed Miliband: People can judge me on that if they like, Cathy. But I actually think that what the British people want to know is how are we going to change their lives? And that is what we’re focussed on.

Cathy Newman: But you won’t commit to not taking any more free tickets, now you’re a minister?

Ed Miliband: I think I am very busy doing other things rather than doing those kind of things.