Winter fuel payment: Protesters shout “Shame on you!” as they attend rally against cuts outside Parliament

Protesters congregated for a rally against the winter fuel payment cuts outside Parliament today (October 7).

The government says they are cutting winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, a one-off £200 or £300 payment to help with heating costs, to fix a £22bn black hole in the public finances.

One protester, speaking as she held a Disney ‘Frozen’ placard with an image of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, said: “I want Keir Starmer to let it go, what he’s done to pensioners. When we’re pensioners and we expect to be rewarded because that’s what the NHS told us when we started work in the 70s, ‘you get rubbish money now, but you will be rewarded in your old age’ it’s just not happened.”

Another said: “I can’t understand why just behind us [Parliament] they pay pensioners £350 per day to sign a register and they're taking away £200 per year from the pensioner. This is a Labour government, it seems to be going out of its way to annoy older people”.