Rename the Winter Fuel Payment, the Two Child Benefit Cap and the Pension Triple Lock

The Comms and Politics of Cutting and Spending

Last week, the Economist characterised Labour’s political approach as “all pain, no gain”.

Cuts to winter fuel payments made Labour look cruel rather than fiscally responsible. Voters left Labour and flocked to Reform, driving disastrous results at the May local elections, and a recent U-turn. This is despite many economists and policy wonks in Westminster not only supporting these cuts, but arguing for the abolition of the pensions triple lock, which may prove far more politically difficult.

To reverse Britain’s decline, Labour cannot realistically dodge difficult decisions. So how can it make these decisions a little less painful? One approach is relatively simple - renaming things.

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Gordon Brown Was A Bit Too Good at Comms

When new subsidies, benefits and policies are created, they are usually named to maximise political gain. But this makes them harder to cut later - the average voter does not have time to read detailed analyses of the cost-effectiveness of different policies - they are simply reading the headlines and feeling the effects.

Pensioners receiving “winter fuel payments” have no obligation to spend the payments in the winter, on fuel, on heating or even on themselves. If the only, or primary, purpose of the payment was to reduce ill-health caused by cold winters amongst pensioners living in fuel poverty, this policy design is clearly suboptimal. When Gordon Brown introduced the winter fuel payment in 1997, it was likely named to maximise popularity - and as the May elections have shown - rather successfully.

“Winter fuel” evokes a vivid image in the minds of voters - a payment that keeps their grandparents warm on the coldest days. The party that limits these payments, condemning the elderly to shivering in the biting winters, seems cruel. As I heard an acquaintance say at the hospital a few months ago, “Keir’s taking away old people’s money and now they’re going to freeze!”

Would we have seen the same degree of anger on the doorstep if we limited the “targeted pension supplement” to pensioners who are truly in poverty? I don’t think so.

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Children’s Nutrition Payments

The public hates child poverty, but supports the two-child benefit cap, because they hate exploitation of the benefits system too. Inside the Westminster bubble, “the two-child benefit cap” sounds like “a policy which starves Britain’s children and makes them shorter”. Outside the bubble, because of its name, it sounds like “a fair system to stop irresponsible parents from having more children than they can afford”.

Labour is likely to lift the two-child benefit cap soon, and rightly so. Morgan McSweeney is concerned that the public are against this. Maybe the conclusion is that lifting the cap is worth doing despite public opposition, because fighting poverty is so central to Labour’s moral purpose, and this policy would be so cost-effective. But the right comms could plausibly bring the public on-side, and reverse some of the damage of the winter fuel payments debacle.

Rather than announcing a “lifting of the two-child benefit cap”, Labour should aim for headlines where it is credited with something along the lines of “expanding children’s nutrition payments”. Rename the child benefit to something more visceral, and convince the public that Labour is the party of compassion, not cruelty - on the side of children in poverty, rather than “irresponsible parents” or “benefits fraudsters”.

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The Pension Triple Uplift

The voter response to the initial cut in winter fuel payments is worrying for the future of intergenerational fairness in Britain. Not because of the £1.25 billion cost of the U-turn, which politically seems to be the correct decision, but because of what this will mean for political appetite to challenge the pensions triple lock - perhaps the most unaffordable and poorly targeted policy within our welfare system.

Whether or not Labour decides to end the triple lock in the short-term, economic forces outside of its control could leave it with little choice in the coming years. Renaming it now to something like the “pension triple uplift” could make a bold, future decision a little less politically painful, by making it sound more like the end of a temporary increase, rather than a reversal of a permanent increase.

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Renaming policies doesn’t solve everything - it is probably wise to pair announcements on cuts with announcements on investment and spending increases, and to frame cuts as necessary to support NHS spending. Importantly, the media and the public may not actually adopt the new, official name of a policy, as we can see with the history of the “poll tax” (officially known as the Community Charge).

But for Labour’s decisions to deliver less political pain and more political gain, it’s probably better to try and be known as the party which expanded children’s nutrition payments, means-tested targeted pension supplements and weakened the pension triple uplift, than the party which lifted the two-child benefit cap, means-tested winter fuel payments and weakened the pensions triple lock.

I use this Substack for rough thinking around policy and politics, rather than finalised policy proposals. If you disagree with ideas in this post, think I’ve missed something obvious or have any other feedback, I’d love to hear from you!