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Kemi Badenoch has been reminded of the time she called for rich pensioners to be stripped of winter fuel payments during her 2022 leadership campaign.
The shadow communities secretary is one of the runners and riders in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, but her previous comments are unlikely to resonate with the party’s voter base.
In 2022, she argued that the benefit should be “means-tested”, saying a more “sophisticated mechanism” is required to distribute the payments.
It contrasts starkly with her recent criticism of Labour’s decision to limit the allowance, which she says is “dishonest”, and could also weaken one of the Conservatives’ best attack lines against the Government should she win the leadership contest.
A source from a rival Tory leadership campaign said: “This is terrible. Labour’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment was our one effective attack on Labour. They’ll seize on these comments.”
Last month, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announced that not all pensioners would get winter fuel payments, which support them with the cost of fuel and are worth between £100 and £300 a year.
Instead, she said the benefit would become means-tested, with only those on pension credit getting it in the future.
It means only around one million of the 11 million pensioners currently getting the payments will retain them, with 10 million missing out.
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