{"id":140224,"date":"2024-09-23T11:37:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/winter-fuel-vote-delay-an-outrage-says-union\/"},"modified":"2024-09-23T11:37:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:37:13","slug":"winter-fuel-vote-delay-an-outrage-says-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/23\/winter-fuel-vote-delay-an-outrage-says-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter fuel vote delay an outrage, says union"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Winter<\/div>


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The Unite trade union has said it is an “outrage” that an expected vote on the winter fuel payment cuts at the Labour Party conference has been delayed.<\/p>\n

The non-binding vote had been expected on Monday, the same day Chancellor Rachel Reeves is giving her conference speech to party supporters in Liverpool.<\/p>\n

The vote, which calls on the government to reverse cuts to the payment, could now take place on Wednesday when many activists will have left the conference. <\/p>\n

Reeves said implementing the cut was not a step she wanted to take, but that it was one of the “difficult decisions” needed to fix the economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking to the BBC, she insisted there would not “be a return to austerity” and that overall government spending would rise over the next four or five years. <\/p>\n

However, some departments could see their budgets cut and Reeves have said “detailed” spending will be “negotiated”.<\/p>\n

She also said the “only way to sustainably fund public services is through growing the economy”.<\/p>\n

Throughout Labour’s conference, trade unions have been urging Reeves to U-turn on cuts to the winter fuel payments, which will see 10 million pensioners in England Wales lose out on around \u00a3200-\u00a3300. <\/p>\n

In addition to calling for a reverse to the cut, Unite’s motion also says “any public expenditure gaps” should be filled by “taxing wealth”.<\/p>\n

The motion was backed by other Labour-supporting unions including Aslef.<\/p>\n

Mick Whelan, boss of the rail union, said: “We are disappointing that this motion has been moved and we don\u2019t understand why.”<\/p>\n

United general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Right now it is fair to say that the Labour leaders have tried to silence the voice of pensioners, workers and communities at party conference.”<\/p>\n

She said the delay to the vote was a “blatant manoeuvre to block debate on winter fuel cuts and the departure towards austerity mark two”.<\/p>\n

“When this becomes widely known there will be real anger among everyday people.”<\/p>\n

Labour MP Bell Ribiero-Addy added her voice to some of her party colleagues who have publicly criticised the cut. <\/p>\n

She said she hoped the chancellor would announce measures to “offset” the impact.<\/p>\n

Despite some disquiet among Labour MPs and opposition from the other parties in Parliament, the government won its vote<\/a> to implement the cuts by a majority of 120.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Unite trade union has said it is an “outrage” that an expected vote on the winter fuel payment cuts at the Labour Party conference has been delayed. The non-binding vote had been expected on Monday, the same day Chancellor Rachel Reeves is giving her conference speech to party supporters in Liverpool. The vote, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/e639\/live\/b06007f0-799b-11ef-b5a2-e938eb3d640b.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[2406,2363,11947,6953,901,2802],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140226,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140224\/revisions\/140226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}