Winter fuel payment: Sir Keir Starmer's Labour urged to reverse other benefit changes after U-turn

The policy has resulted in a major backlash and contributed to Reform winning a series of councils, a by-election and one mayoralty.

After the Prime Minister said he would look again at the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the winter fuel allowance, it is believed other policies could also be looked at again, including the two-child benefit cap, or health and disability cuts.

The SNP has now written to Sir Keir urging him to think again over the policies, while Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman implored Sir Keir to drop the two-child benefit cap.

It comes as sources claimed the UK government was “open” to adapting policy as “the circumstances allow”.

In a letter to the Labour leader, SNP work and pensions spokesperson Kirsty Blackman said: "Your decision to strip pensioners of their winter fuel payments has pushed many older people into hardship and caused almost a year’s worth of tremendous concern and uncertainty. With energy bills and the cost of living soaring on the Labour government's watch, people will be anxious for more information on what exactly you meant by your comments.

"I am therefore calling on you to scrap your plan to leave people waiting until the autumn for more details and, instead, immediately confirm that there will be a full and immediate U-turn on the Labour Party's cuts to the winter fuel payment, that the payment will be restored as a universal benefit, with payments in place to benefit pensioners by this coming winter - and that any Barnett consequentials will be made available in full to the Scottish Government.

"I also urge you to use this opportunity to abandon your plan to impose even more austerity cuts to vulnerable people and public services at the upcoming spending review. That means abandoning the planned Labour Party cuts to disability benefits and reversing your decision to continue imposing the two-child benefit cap, which is pushing thousands of Scottish children into poverty.

"People in Scotland have lost trust in your government. Voters in Scotland are appalled that the Labour Party has broken its election promises, and chosen to push thousands of children, disabled people and pensioners into hardship and poverty - by imposing austerity cuts and balancing the books on the backs of the poor.

"Unless there is a full and immediate U-turn on these austerity cuts, the broken public trust in the Labour government will erode even further.”

Mr Leishman, the Alloa and Grangemouth MP, also called for Sir Keir to lift the two-child cap, explaining it would lift almost half a million children out of poverty.

The Labour MP said: “A defining mission of the Labour Party should be alleviating poverty and lifting people out of destitution. Unemployment used to be the reason why families were in poverty, but over three-quarters of people using foodbanks are in employment.

“The government has increased the national minimum wage, but we have to also reform the Universal Credit system so that it genuinely covers the costs of life’s essentials of food and shelter. I’ve worked with both the Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation to promote their Essentials Guarantee.

“By ending the two-child cap, it would lift almost half a million children out of the most dire circumstances and I hope and urge the government to remove it.”