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Labour’s Warm Home Discount ‘expansion’ is little more than a shameless publicity stunt amid its DWP benefit cuts

A day after Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) boss Liz Kendall laid Labour’s brutal welfare cuts bill before parliament, the government’s PR-machine has whirred into action to do some duplicitous damage control. It has now announced an ‘expansion’ to the Warm Home Discount, vaunting how 2.7 million more people will now be eligible for the payment come winter.

Nothing says “tackling poverty” like expanding a £150 ‘rebate’ – not even a direct payment – right after laying down plans to strip millions of chronically ill and disabled people of their vital benefits.

Warm Home Discount: Labour in damage control mode

As the BBC reported:

Double the number of households in Britain will get £150 off their energy bills this winter as the government changes the rules on who qualifies for the Warm Home Discount.

Anyone on means-tested benefits will automatically see the money knocked off their bills no matter what size of property they live in.

Energy and net zero secretary Ed Miliband boasted (unironically) about the expansion:

A sycophantic clique of Labour MPs joined him in rhapsodising over the government’s announcement:

It’s almost as if there’s a social media template for MPs to croon over the news (there undoubtedly is).

A crafty PR ploy after the benefit cuts bill

Of course, the timing is also notable. A public relations ploy to move the news cycle on from yesterday’s callous welfare bill? It seems likely.

However, here’s the thing: in reality, it’s actually not an ‘expansion’ in any real sense.

This is because all that the Labour government has done, is restore what the Tories previously took away:

In 2022, the then Conservative government restricted the eligibility criteria for the WHD. Specifically, this stipulated that consumers could only get the benefit if the government determined they had ‘high energy costs’. However, in practice, the way the government assessed this excluded many households with exorbitant energy expenses.

As Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis explained:

High energy usage wasn’t assessed using bills, but by an algorithm looking at the Valuation Office Agency data on each home – yet this didn’t factor in energy efficiency or a homes condition.

That left many not getting it as the algorithm wrongly assumed they had low usage, when they provably didn’t. As MSE user Rob told us, his home was too small to qualify “I’m still as cold and as poor as I was last year, except this year I don’t get any help.”

Plus where there was no data, homes were asked to provide an EPC certificate, but an EPC costs up to £120 negating the gain of doing so (and many didnt have that to shell out)

In short, the Tories’ policy denied the WHD to many who should have been eligible, due to flawed algorithms. So, all Labour is actually doing is returning the eligibility criteria back to what it was. And while that’s welcome, it’s hardly the fuel poverty-busting master stroke the government is making out.

Energy Price Cap rises will swallow it anyway

What’s more, forecasts are predicting that the Energy Price Cap is set to rise from October:

So, in real-terms, the rebate will be worth less anyway – because people’s energy bills will be going up at the same time.

Overall, the scheme is all smoke and mirrors for the government and spineless regulator Ofgem’s inaction. Instead of reigning in profiteering energy companies that are charging people through the nose, *some* people on low incomes can get a small amount off their bills:

Naturally, it doesn’t make up for energy corporations price-gouging since the pandemic and since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Of course, the disaster capitalists at Whitehall aren’t going to stick it to the disaster capitalists in the privatised energy racket, as we’ve seen time and again.

Cold comfort to chronically ill and disabled people losing their benefits

Ultimately, that £150 ‘rebate’ will be cold comfort to the millions of chronically ill and disabled people the government are saddling with gargantuan cuts.

On Wednesday 18 June, the government finally published its much-dreaded welfare bill. Broadly speaking, it set out the plans the DWP had in the pipeline from its March Green Paper. It included sweeping cuts to both Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit’s Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA).

The DWP’s own impact assessment predicts that the policies will push some 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children. However, as the Canary has detailed, the estimate was misleading and flawed. The true number is likely to be much higher than this.

A report the Poverty and Inequality All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) published on Monday calculated that the combined impact of the changes could strip some claimants of nearly £10,000 a year.

That £150 reduction to their energy bills will do little to offset this. And it’s also not to mention that many won’t be eligible anyway.

Notably, the previous Conservative government’s changes also previously stripped around 300,000 chronically ill and disabled people of the WHD in winter 2022/23. This was because it tied the payment to means-tested benefits. Consequently, those claiming PIP, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and Attendance Allowance, could no longer qualify.

North East getting left behind… again

To make matters worse, the North East region will have to benefit from the WHD change, with just 100,000 households. On top of that, the North East of England has proportionally the highest number of disabled people: 567,000.

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t the first time this Labour government has neglected the region.

It was only 18 June that the DWP quietly announced an in-person consultation for the North East on its Pathways to Work Green Paper. To that point, it was the only region in the entire UK it hadn’t planned any for.

The sneaky webpage ‘update’ came on the same day the government published its welfare cuts bill. It likely hoped this would get lost amidst the news cycle, and it largely has.

Nothing to see here.

A ‘real difference’ to very few, if any

Of course, the government wants to paint the WHD change as a magnanimous policy intervention that will lift millions of households out of poverty. Prime minister Keir Starmer’s gloating press release garble says it all:

I know families are still struggling with the cost of living, and I know the fear that comes with not being able to afford your next bill.

Providing security and peace of mind for working people is deeply personal to me as Prime Minister and foundational for the Plan for Change. I have no doubt that, like rolling out free school meals, breakfast clubs and childcare support, extending this £150 energy bills support to millions more families will make a real difference.

Whether its this half-arsed WHD rewind, or its flagship child poverty breakfast clubs, it’s all political pomp and publicity stunts with this Labour government. It could remove the two child cap on benefits. It could tax extreme wealth. It could listen to chronically ill and disabled people crying out that its bill will decimate their lives. It won’t. What it will do, is make bullshit changes so it can roll out the PR wagon while people suffer.

By now it’s clear: Labour’s legacy during this parliament will be marked by a callous disregard for the lives of marginalised communities everywhere.

Featured image via Unsplash/Arthur Lambillotte

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.