Robert Jenrick blasts ‘selfish’ Keir Starmer for ‘paying the unions’ amid winter fuel cuts: ‘It’s shameful!’
Robert Jenrick has scolded Sir Keir Starmer for “taking money from poor pensioners” and “giving money to placate his union paymasters”, amid Labour’s scrap of the Winter Fuel Payment.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has stood firm on her move to cut the benefit for millions of pensioners across Britain, telling the party’s conference this week that it was the “right decision”.
Speaking to GB News from the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Jenrick hit out at the Labour Government and claimed Starmer is making a “bad” and “selfish” choice by paying the unions more whilst taking a key benefit away from Britain’s elderly.
Jenrick fumed: “The point here is that Keir Starmer is making a choice. I think it’s a bad choice, a selfish choice, and it reveals a lot about his personality and his politics.
“Giving money to placate his union paymasters, taking it away from poor pensioners – I think that’s shameful.”
Highlighting Labour’s lack of warning for pensioners during the election campaign that this was going to be implemented, Jenrick told GB News that the government have been “dishonest” with the public and have “made a political choice” in favouring a pay rise for the unions.
Jenrick explained: “The issue here is twofold. One is the fact that Labour never said they were going to do this during the election campaign, so the dishonesty here is hiding this from the public.
“The other point is that Keir Starmer is making a political choice to give money to his union paymasters. For example, £10,000 a year to train drivers who are already well paid without properly settling the strikes, and yet he’s taking it from 10 million pensioners.
“There are some people who are on good incomes, but there are also millions of pensioners who are not, and there are pensioners who are on as little as £13,000 a year who this autumn and winter, when energy prices are on the rise, are going to be £600 pounds worse off.”
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Offering some positive remarks about other policies the Labour Party are implementing, the Tory leadership hopeful admitted he is “pleased” that they are “turning their attention” to building more homes, but claimed they are “going about it the wrong way”.
Jenrick said: “I’m pleased that they are turning their attention to how we get more homes built in this country. We need to build homes. We need more industry and infrastructure. Unfortunately, they’re going about it in the wrong way.
“They’re doing precisely the opposite of what I want to do. They’re slashing the housing targets in the big cities, and they’re hiking them in the countryside and in places where there isn’t demand for housing.
“So the idea is right, but the policies are wrong.”
When asked how he would handle the key issues affecting Britain if elected Conservative leader, Jenrick claimed he would “support Labour with reform of the NHS”, and pledged a “radical change to the UK’s planning system” for building new homes.
Jenrick claimed: “If I was leader of our party and ultimately Prime Minister, I want to get young people onto the housing ladder with serious but radical changes to our planning system.
“I’ve already said that the NHS needs reform, and if Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer come forward with genuine reforms in the national interest that improve productivity, so that we actually talk about outputs, not just inputs, I would support them.
“I think the public want to see their opposition behave in a mature way. Support them where there are good things, and vigorously oppose them where they’re making mistakes, like taking the Winter Fuel Allowance away from 10 million pensioners.”