Keir Starmer faces PMQs as leaked Treasury figures suggest state pension to rise by more than £400 next year – UK politics live

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Grenfell report blames decades of government failure and companies’ ‘systematic dishonesty’

The embargo on the Grenfell Tower inquiry report has been lifted. Here is our story on what it says, from Robert Booth and Emine Sinmaz.

There is further coverage on our Grenfell live blog.

The Scottish government has put in “as much money as we can” to try to avoid strikes by council staff, Shona Robison, the finance secretary, has said.

Robison said, while it was “disappointing” that Unison, Scotland’s largest local government union, had voted against the latest pay deal, the issue was one for the council body Cosla to resolve. As PA Media reports, her comments came after Unison members voted by 86% to reject an offer which would have given staff either an hourly pay increase of 67p or a 3.6% salary rise, whichever is higher.

That vote means that waste and recycling staff in some areas could walk out on strike, while in some areas non-teaching staff in schools could take action, potentially leading to school closures.

In an interview with BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland, Robison said:

We have put as much money as we can into these envelopes, to try to avoid what is costly industrial action.

Stressing it was a “fair offer” which was above the rate of inflation that had been made to council workers, Robison said the Scottish government and Cosla would “continue to work with the unions to make sure we can avoid costly industrial action where we can”.

But she added:

What is important now is that the employer, local government, continues to discuss with Unison to see if that costly industrial action can be avoided.

A reader is asking for more data on the income of pensioner households, to help understand the reasoning behind the government’s decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance.

@Andrew The debate about the fuel allowance has been too simplistic. We need real data to understand it properly. For example, 80% of pensioners do not qualify for additional benefits - that isn’t a scandal - it’s because they earn enough not to. There are 8.5m who earned above the personal tax threshold so were taxed last year. This isn’t about taking money from the poor, it’s about redistributing money where it is needed!

That is a good excuse to quote a passage from Torsten Bell’s excellent new book, Great Britain? Bell used to be head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, but he was selected at the last minute as a Labour election candidate and he is now parliamentary private secretary to Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister and one of the most powerful figures in the cabinet.

Bell says:

On 25 November 1997, just months after the New Labour government was formed, Gordon Brown introduced the annual winter fuel payment for all pensioners. He was reflecting the concerns not just of 1990s Labour politicians but of anti-poverty campaigners too: the two great and equal evils to be alleviated were pensioner poverty and child poverty. The inequality surge of the 1980s had left both sky high: in 1990 almost 40 per cent of pensioners and over 30 per cent of children were in poverty. It was no country to grow up or grow old in.

Today, pensioner poverty levels have been halved to stand at 18 per cent. (In contrast, child poverty has stayed stubbornly high.) There are still too many poor pensioners, with increases in recent years, but this is a major improvement that British politics is still struggling to wake up to. For the first time in history, pensioners are now less likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population and, since 2010, the typical pensioner’s income is similar to or even higher than the typical non-pensioner’s. Policy has supported this trend, most recently with the triple lock on the state pension ensuring it rises in line with whichever is higher: inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent. But the trend also reflects that those in their sixties and seventies today are more likely to be doing some work, owning their own home and retiring on more generous private pensions than their predecessors. The retired have bucked the income stagnation trend with 24 per cent income growth between 2004/05 and 2021/22, in contrast with 11 per cent growth for the rest of the population.The good news is that economic outcomes for older age groups are far rosier than they used to be.

And here is the chart that illustrates this.

Great Britain? is an exceptionally clear, intelligent, pragmatic and forward-looking analysis of what’s gone wrong with the British economy, and other factors impacting on living standards. And, in terms of what it proposes on policy, it’s markedly more meaty and inspiring than the Labour manifesto. It’s well worth reading. Gaby Hinsliff reviewed it for us here.

Martin Belam is writing our live blog covering the final report from the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which is being published at 11am. It’s here.

How Kemi Badenoch defended removing winter fuel payments from wealthy pensioners

If Keir Starmer does get asked about Labour’s plan to means-test the winter fuel allowance at PMQs, he may enjoying quoting Kemi Badenoch, the favourite in the Tory leadership contest, in his defence.

As the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith reports, Badenoch proposed means-testing the benefit when she was first running for the Tory leadership in the summer of 2022.

Badenoch said:

There is a lot of dead weight in how we run government,” said the shadow communities secretary in the clip from 2022. “I have people in my constituency telling me that they don’t need the winter fuel payments that we give them because they can afford it. Why do we not have a more sophisticated mechanism for means-testing?

The Badenoch campaign now says she was only proposing removing the winter fuel allowance from the most wealthy pensioners, not from the majority of pensioners (the Labour government’s proposal).

Starmer is vulnerable on this issue because means-testing the winter fuel payment was not included in Labour’s manifesto. But it was in another recent election manifesto – the Conservative party’s in 2017, when Theresa May was PM. Her manifesto said:

We will look at winter fuel payments, the largest benefit paid to pensioners, in this context. The benefit is paid regardless of need, giving money to wealthier pensioners when working people on lower incomes do not get similar support. So we will meanstest winter fuel payments, focusing assistance on the least well-off pensioners, who are most at risk of fuel poverty.

Keir Starmer faces PMQs as leaked Treasury figures suggest state pension to rise by more than £400 next year

Good morning. Keir Starmer is taking PMQs today. It is only his second PMQs as prime minister, but don’t expect fireworks, high drama and a defining party politial encounter. That is more likely when Starmer gets to face a permanent opposition leader, not Rishi Sunak, who is just working his notice period. And parliamentary business in the Commons today will be dominated by the publication of the final report from the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire. Starmer will be making a statement on this to MPs straight after PMQs, but most of our Grenfell coverage will be on a separate live blog.

At his first PMQs, before the summer recess, Starmer came under pressure over the two-child benefit cap. Today the PM is likely to face questions about the government’s decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, and claims that millions of pensions who are not poor enough to qualify for pension credit will struggle to heat their homes this winter when they lose the payment (worth up to £300). As Pippa Crerar reports, MPs will vote on this next week.

Just ahead of PMQs, internal Treasury figures that will help Starmer defend means-testing the winter fuel allowance have conveniently ended up in the hands of the BBC. Ministers have justified removing the benefit from most pensioners on the grounds that pensioners are generally much better off, compared to the population as a whole, than they were when Gordon Brown introduced the winter fuel allowance in 1997. That is largely because of the pension triple lock (introduced by the coalition). The triple lock ensures that state pension rises every year either in line with prices, earnings or 2.5% – whichever is higher.

Next year the state pension will rise in line with earnings, which are currently rising faster than inflation (2.2% in July, although the Septembe figure is the benchmark) or 2.5%. The latest earnings figures are not due out until next week. But Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor, says he has seen internal Treasury figures showing that, on the basis of those earning figures, the state pension will rise by more than £400 next year. In his report Islam says:

The Treasury expects the new full state pension to be boosted above inflation by over £400 a year in cash terms, as a result of the triple lock next April.

The internal working calculations, seen by the BBC, reflect the near certainty that the state pension will be increased by average earnings figures released next week.

This will take the full state pension for men who were born after 1951 and women born after 1953 to around £12,000 in 2025/26, after the £900 increase last year.

Pre-2016 retirees, who may have been eligible for the secondary state pension, are likely to see at least a £300 a year increase in the basic state pension to £9,000 in 2025/26 under the old system.

The Treasury will be hoping that, because £400 is more than £300, MPs will conclude that this will more than compensate for the loss of the winter fuel allowance. It is not that simple, of course, because the rise in the state pension is meant to help with all the multiple extra costs and price rises pensioners face over 12 months, not just the loss of a single payment. But it might take the edge off some of the concern about the winter fuel allowance policy.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11am: The final report from the inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire is published.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Rishi Sunak at PMQs.

12.30pm: Starmer makes a statement to MPs about the Grenfell inquiry report.

1.30pm: Conservative MPs start voting in the first ballot for the leadership contest. The ballot closes at 3pm and the results will be announced at 3.30pm.

2.50pm: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, announces his programme for government in a statement to MSPs.

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