Conservative leader Rishi Sunak asked the Prime Minister if cutting winter fuel payments to pensioners would lead to more than 3,800 deaths as he accused Sir Keir Starmer of “hiding” the policy’s impact assessment.Referring to the Government benches, Mr Sunak said: “They’re shouting now, those arguments didn’t even convince 50 of his own MPs, who suddenly found that they had urgent business elsewhere yesterday.“But we know why he’s hiding the impact assessment. The Labour Party’s own previous analysis claimed that this policy could cause 3,850 deaths. So, are the numbers in his impact assessment higher or lower than that?”Sir Keir Starmer replied: “We’re taking this decision to stabilise the economy, that means we can commit to the triple lock, by committing to the triple lock we can make sure that payments of state pension are higher, and therefore there’s more money in the pocket of pensioners, notwithstanding the tough action that we need to take.“But (Mr Sunak) goes around pretending that everything’s fine. That’s the argument he tried in the election and that’s why he’s sitting there and we are sitting here.”
