Winter Fuel's Back, Back Again (For Most)

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, Labour confirms 75% of pensioners will keep their winter fuel payments, reversing a widely criticised policy.

Nine million pensioners in England and Wales with an annual income of £35,000 or less will now be eligible. The payment, worth up to £300 to help with energy bills during the coldest months, was paid only to those on pension credit last year. Alex and Chris discuss the chain of events that have led to this moment, and what it says about the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

Also, a yacht carrying 12 pro-Palestinian activists, including Greta Thunberg, was intercepted by the Israeli navy while sailing toward Gaza with aid. Alex speaks to the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen about what happened and the state of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere

New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Alex Forsyth. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Julia Webster and Adam Chowdhury. The technical producer was Hannah Montgomery and James Piper. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:04.9	Hello, it is Alex in for Adam for one day only.
0:08.3	You might remember a couple of weeks ago, there was a sort of friendly disagreement between
0:14.1	Chris and Adam over when a government U-turn is a U-turn, because Chris was saying that the government had U-turned on the
0:22.9	winter fuel policy and Adam was saying it's only a U-turn if they go all the way back to where
0:28.6	they'd started and they hadn't. So what did you think? Was it a U-turn or not? And perhaps today's
0:35.3	news has helped you make up your mind because we've heard a bit more detail
0:38.9	and the government now says most of the people they took the winter fuel payment away from
0:44.1	are going to get it back. So that is what we're going to talk about on this episode of Newscast.
0:49.8	Newscast from the BBC. He has just compared me to the fat controller. Did I say that? I can't
0:57.0	believe I said that. Next question. This is R for the benefit of Earth. I'm not personally a huge
1:02.6	Sabrina Carpenter fan. I don't think I'm being rude. I like landscapes. Take me down to Downey Street.
1:08.6	Let's go have a tour. Blimey.
1:12.7	Hello, it is Alex in the studio.
1:14.1	And it is Chris at Westminster.
1:20.2	So Chris, a few weeks ago, Adam was talking to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves,
1:23.3	and you might remember that she said this.
1:27.8	Are you going to look at expanding the scope of who can claim the winter fuel payment?
1:34.4	Well, look, when I became Chancellor, I think that most people recognised that we faced a pretty tough inheritance,
1:39.5	and we had to take some urgent decisions in the first month of taking office to ensure that our public finances were in a stable position
1:43.6	because I made a commitment that I would
1:45.7	never repeat the mistakes that Liz Trust made, which crashed our economy and sent mortgage rates
	...

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