Keir Starmer set to warn: ‘Things will get worse before we get better’

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said he thought the PM would be showing “refreshing candour” with the public in the speech – saying “we will get there, but it will take time”.

He said the move to start means-testing pensioners’ winter fuel allowance was “not a decision that we wanted to take”.

But Mr McFadded added: “When we came into office we found billions of pounds of unfunded spending commitments… so we had to make a very difficult decision.”

He said that there were almost 900,000 pensioners entitled to pension credit who don’t currently claim it, and that all pensioners should be confident that the pension triple lock would be protected throughout the Parliamentary term.

Reacting to details of the PM’s speech, Conservative Party chairman Richard Fuller said: “The soft-touch Labour chancellor is squandering money whilst fabricating a financial black hole in an attempt to con the public into accepting tax rises, and literally leaving pensioners in the cold.

“The Prime Minister really should tell his chancellor to reverse course or step in himself to reverse her decision.”

Restricting winter fuel payments to only those who receive pension credits or other means-tested benefits has also been criticised by former Labour cabinet minister Alan Johnson.

Speaking to the BBC’s World This Weekend, Mr Johnson – whose roles in the previous Labour government included serving as work and pensions secretary – said the government should consider offering support to pensioners who do not receive means-tested benefits but who are still on a low income.

“[For] the people just above pension credit, when you turn from a universal payment into a means-tested one, you have to look at tapering,” he said.

“You have to look at that for how it affects those people who are just outside of the means-tested income threshold.”