The Chancellor was forced to admit her hated policy will be changed

Rachel Reeves was forced into a humiliating partial climbdown after confirming changes to her hated winter fuel cut will come in time for winter. The Chancellor said adjustments to the scheme will be in place so OAPs get the money in time.

At a press conference in Rochdale, the Chancellor said: “We have listened to the concerns that people had about the level of the means test, and so we will be making changes to that. They will be in place so that pensioners are paid this coming winter.

“We’ll announce the detail of that and the level of that as soon as we possibly can. But people should be in no doubt that the means test will increase and more people will get a winter fuel payment this winter.”

The Tories accused her of “scrambling to salvage her failing economic plan”.

Shadow Treasury minister Gareth Davies said: “Rachel Reeves is scrambling to salvage her failing economic plan after the Prime Minister has made U-turn after U-turn, punching holes in her credibility.

“She needed to do better than copying and pasting announcements made by the previous Conservative government. The country is not falling for their lies any more. Britain deserves better.

“Only the Conservatives believe in sound money, low tax and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs.”

The Chancellor’s remarks came as pensions minister Torsten Bell ruled out the prospect of returning to a universal winter fuel payment.

Speaking to the Work and Pensions Committee, Mr Bell said: “Directly on your question of is there any prospect of a universal winter fuel payment, the answer is no, the principle I think most people, 95% of people agree, that it’s not a good idea that we have a system paying a few hundreds of pounds to millionaires, and so we’re not going to be continuing with that.

“But we will be looking at making more pensioners eligible.”

Asked what excess deaths were predicted as a result of changes to the winter fuel payment  last autumn, he added: “You don’t need to look at predictions, you can look at what happened in the data over last winter.

“First of all, we saw negative excess deaths, so fewer deaths than normal, that’s obviously due to a wide range of factors.

“But if we look at the cohorts particularly affected by changes in the winter fuel payments, we see no differential effects on their health outcomes over the course of last winter. That’s obviously partly because there’s lots of wider support.

“No one is saying, no one is asking people to wait for changes to the policy on winter fuel payment for help with energy bills.

“We’ve already been getting on with making sure we’re extending the household support fund, raising the state pension significantly above inflation, getting on with the longer-term answers in terms of a warm homes programme.