Top former Welsh Labour MP blasts winter fuel payment U-turn as 'incompetence'
Kim Howells said the Labour administration was 'rudderless'
Kim Howells, former MP for Pontypridd
(Image: western Mail )
Former Welsh MP Kim Howells said the U-turn by the UK Labour Government over winter fuel payments "smacks of incompetence". The former Labour minister went on to say that U-turns "never look good".
Speaking to BBC Radio Wales Breakfast said the current UK Government is "rudderless". Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed on June 9 that over 75% of pensioners will now receive the winter fuel payment this year. The policy proposal had been hugely unpopular with voters and caused unrest within the parliamentary party.
Mr Howells, who represented Pontypridd from 1989 to 2010 and was in both the Blair and Brown governments, said it showed the UK Government was "kind of rudderless, floating around, not knowing which way to turn. Now they face this kind of humiliation, and, really, there was no need for it."
"For a Labour government to be doing this just seemed daft, really. This along with a number of other decisions has allowed people, quite validly, to level really very significant criticism at the government," he said.
In July 2024, the government announced that they would be means-testing the winter fuel payment, introducing a cap that meant only those on pension credit would receive the payment. The move was widely criticised. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here .
This latest U-turn means that pensioners earning an annual income of £35,000 or under will be eligible for the payment – around nine million people.
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Mr Howells also warned that the government's communication strategy risks them losing support to Nigel Farage's Reform UK. "I don't understand anything Keir Starmer says. It's this kind of London techno speak which nobody understands. It's kind of a mist, instead of a clear policy.
"People need a hope. They need to see that there is a future and not just this constant attempt to patch up everything that they see going wrong,' said Mr Howells.
He said parties like Reform UK were better at "communicating in a language that people can understand."
Mr Howells also said that the decisions being made by the Westminster government would impact Welsh Labour. Polling ahead of next year's Senedd election shows an uphill battle for Eluned Morgan's party. In the most recent poll Welsh Labour had slipped to third with 18% of the vote share, behind both Plaid Cymru and Reform UK. You can read that here.
Mr Howells said Welsh Labour would 'undoubtedly' pay the price for their decisions, and that devolution requires "fresh thinking". "We fought for devolution, brought it in in Tony Blair's first Labour government. It was designed to make Wales better," he said.
"But our health service is even worse than in England. This is not making Wales better – this is just about managing to patch up and stop it sinking,' he said.
"What we should be concentrating on is creating new industries and new jobs and a new future for Wales. Not constantly trying to get subsidies from south-east England – that's not the way to do it.
'This has been the curse of the Welsh Assembly [now Senedd] all along. It's not been about encouraging entrepreneurships and getting people to start their own businesses, vibrancy, it's been constantly about the old politics, of getting our share,' he said.
Mr Howells said that public investment is very important, but that 'radical thinking' was needed to secure a good future for Wales.
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"It needs Keir Starmer's government in London [and the Senedd in Cardiff] to realise that the world is changing at a fantastic pace, and we've got to change with it and that means we've got to reassess all of these priorities of government," he said.
Both Welsh secretary Jo Stevens and a representative from Welsh Labour were asked to speak on the programme but both declined, the BBC said.
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