Labor MPs have appealed to Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to prevent poorer pensioners from losing their winter fuel payments.

A Commons motion backed by 23 Labor MPs, as well as three elected Labor candidates but now sitting as independents, suggests benefits rules could be changed so that help is available to current pensioners considered too rich to need it.

Only retirees eligible for benefits such as Pension Credit will continue to receive winter heating benefits of up to £300 to keep their homes warm this winter, under the new means testing policy announced by the chancellor. In most cases this means single people with an income above £11,344 or couples with a joint income above £17,313 will lose this money.

But analysis from Age UK shows that 82% of pensioners living below or just above the poverty line are at risk of losing their winter fuel payment.

Among those who signed the warning that “the current threshold for pension support to pave the way for winter fuel allowance is too low” is John Trickett, who was Gordon Brown’s parliamentary private secretary when Mr Brown was Prime Minister.

MPs do not specify what the new threshold should be, but any increase would significantly increase the current cost of Pension Credit, which stands at £5.4 billion. However, creating a separate means test specifically for winter fuel payments, rather than using the current Pension Credit threshold, would also be extremely costly.

Dennis Reed, director of campaign group Silver Voices, said: “Labour MPs are trying to find ways out of the political embarrassment facing the party.

“If the pension credit threshold was raised significantly to accommodate two to three million older people who will immediately fall into poverty as a result of this decision, we would be happy with that, but that will not happen because The cost to the Treasury would be much higher than the savings made thanks to this petty measure.

Silver Voices is calling on the Government to delay the change for a year and then suspend payments only for people paying the highest rate of income tax, with incomes of £50,271 or more.

Caroline Abrahams CBE, charity director at Age UK, said: “We hear from a lot of people who have an income that is slightly too high to qualify for Pension Credit, which means that from this winter they will no longer be eligible. to pay for winter fuel, even though they may already be struggling to make ends meet.

“This group is far from wealthy, and many rely on extra money to keep the heat going. It is therefore imperative that the Government explores all avenues to ensure that no one who really needs money is left struggling this winter. »

Heidi Karjalainen, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said: “A higher threshold does not remove the problem of low participation.”