Sunderland's Labour MPs have ‘shamefully failed local people’ on Winter Fuel Payment vote

Responding to the vote in the House of Commons this afternoon on cancelling the planned changes to Winter Fuel Payments, Liberal Democrat leader of the opposition on Sunderland City Council Paul Edgeworth said:

“At the first real test of where the loyalties of Sunderland’s Labour MPs lie under this new government Bridget Phillipson and Lewis Atkinson have shamefully failed local people by backing their party bosses and a new Labour age of austerity instead of doing the decent thing and prioritising help with fuel bills for older people. Sharon Hodgson failed to vote against the Government.

“Of course millionaires don’t need the winter fuel payment, but for Labour to stop giving help to thousands of people in Sunderland who are just above the Pension Credit threshold and who will struggle as energy bills rise this winter is utterly shameful and a total disgrace.”