Manchester City Council will set up the UK’s first pensioner hardship fund designed to combat rising costs faced by Manchester’s pensioners, it was decided today.
However, the city’s Labour administration did not support opposition calls for the government to reverse its decision on winter fuel payments.
The motion on the hardship fund, which could offer support to thousands of Manchester’s pensioners, was proposed to full council by Labour councillors Joan Davies and Pat Karney.
Additional initiatives will include a mission to improve pension credit uptake – which will involve contacting more than 8000 pensioners who are eligible for pension credit but have not claimed it.
Labour councillor Susan Cooley said: “It’s an absolute scandal that so many people over so many years have done without [pension credit].”
The hardship fund is intended to provide additional emergency cash payments to older people who need it.
Cllr Karney also said there will be an emergency meeting with the city’s energy providers to talk to them directly about support for pensioners and low-income households.
An opposing Liberal Democrat councillor, however, described the decision by Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government to cut winter fuel allowance to pensioners as “shocking”.
Lib Dem councillor John Leech criticised the motion as an effort to “try and hide the fact that [Labour] are taking away the winter fuel allowance because [they] are embarrassed”.
Cllr Leech said: “Labour claim to stand up for Manchester yet no Manchester MPs voted to protect pensioners.
“It is wrong. It is shameful.”
Responding to Cllr Leech, however, Labour councillors drew attention to his own record as Lib Dem MP between 2005 and 2015.
Feature Image: Lucy Beetson
