Kemi Badenoch says it is a "joke" to say that Sir Keir Starmer's partial U-turn on winter fuel payments is a reaction to the economy improving. The Conservative leader also says she would like to see a change that means pensioners who earn “£11,000 to £15,000 a year getting winter fuel payments”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Prime Minister and number 10 seem to be saying this is because the economy's turned a corner. Do you buy that?
00:04No, not at all. That's a joke. We just had inflation figures this morning that shows that inflation has doubled since they took office from the Conservatives.
00:12He is not running the economy well. Unemployment is up. Jobs are disappearing. Vacancies, you know, vacancy registrations are going.
00:20So we know the economy is not doing well. And he's spending a lot of money on things that he shouldn't be spending money on and doing that on the backs of pensioners.
00:28That's why this U-turn is necessary. But what we don't know is exactly what it's going to entail.
00:32I would like to see something that means that people who are on £11,000, £15,000 are getting their winter fuel payment.
00:39It is not right that he took it away from people who are, you know, on the breadline, so to speak.
00:44What I have always said is that millionaires shouldn't be getting the winter fuel payments. But what he did was completely extraordinary.
00:50It was not right. And a lot of people are suffering. We're hearing stories of pensioners not able to heat their homes.
00:55We're hearing stories of people having to choose between heating and eating.
00:59And it's very frustrating listening to the Prime Minister, who never answered a question on this, every week when I asked him about the winter fuel payment,
01:06suddenly now realising that he's made a horrible mistake. But is he going to do it on time?
01:10That's the new question we need to ask. So what I would like to see is him setting out the details and doing so early.
01:16Because we can't wait until the budget. By then it'll be too late.
01:19If he's waiting until the budget, it means that people are going to lose their winter fuel payment for another year.