Sir Keir Starmer said “there isn’t a report on my desk” showing the impact of his Government’s decision to strip winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners.
Downing Street confirmed that a full impact assessment of the change had not been carried out.
The Prime Minister and Chancellor Rachel Reeves decided to means-test the payments, worth up to £300, to help fill a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances.
From this winter, only people on pension credit or certain other benefits will receive the payments in England and Wales.
The Government has been under pressure from the Tories to publish an impact assessment of the plan, which will reduce the number of recipients from about 10.8 million last winter to an estimated 1.5 million this year, saving £1.3 billion.
Pressed on whether an impact assessment would be published, Sir Keir told reporters travelling with him to Washington DC: “There isn’t a report on my desk which somehow we’re not showing, that I’m not showing, as simple as that.”
He said the Government was not legally required to produce one.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said some statistical work had been done, but nothing on what impact the change might have on vulnerable pensioners.
“There are clear rules on this that we followed carefully and, for policy changes implemented through secondary legislation, like the change to winter fuel payment eligibility, departments are required to make regulatory impact assessments if the cost of the legislation exceeds £10 million and so an assessment was therefore not required for the change to winter fuel eligibility.”
There was a legal duty to consider the “equality implications” of any policy development and “that happened in the usual way to assess the proportion of protected characteristics, such as age and gender who claim winter fuel payments”.
And there was also an official statistical publication which set out the estimated number of households in fuel poverty.
But the spokeswoman confirmed there had been no work on how many people affected by the change might have health difficulties or might be vulnerable or at risk as a result of the change.
Asked whether an assessment should have been done to work out whether elderly people might die as a result of the change, the spokeswoman said: “The Government will be ensuring that those who are most vulnerable and should be receiving support are receiving it, and that’s why there is a huge effort to try and convert people onto pension credit.
“And also, we want people to be applying for the wider support, which is also there for the most vulnerable.
“Our approach is to ensure that those most vulnerable are receiving targeted support, and we’ve had to take that tough decision to rebalance the books, given the state of the public finances.”
In 2017, Labour claimed Conservative plans to means-test the winter fuel allowance could lead to almost 4,000 deaths.
