Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has refused to apologise to pensioners four times for the government's decision to cut Winter Fuel Payments this year.

During an interview with Good Morning Britain (GMB) co-host Susanna Reid this morning (September 25), Starmer was repeatedly asked if he wanted to say sorry as up to 10 million older people will lose the £300 payment.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced the government would axe the extra financial help available to some pensioners in a bid to fill a "£22 billion black hole".

When asked if he can justify the Winter Fuel Payment cuts, Starmer said to Reid: "Well, it's tough and I think the first thing to say and to explain is why we had to do it. We inherited a really damaged economy, we did an audit and we discovered an undisclosed £22 billion black hole this year, which we have to fix.”

Reid then asked Starmer if he would like to take this opportunity to say sorry to pensioners like Chrissy who was an NHS nurse for 25 years and voted for Labour, to which he responded: “Well, I am really concerned that we've been put in this position. When you inherit an economy with £22 billion missing, it is a really difficult set of choices. But what I don't want to do is to allow the economy to run out of control.

"What I want to make sure is that every single pensioner, there is that increase through the triple lock each and every year. £460 next year because of the triple lock. We have to take that action. But I also have to fix the NHS. Talking to pensioners, so many of them want the NHS to work properly because they're dependent on it.”

The Prime Minister who was then asked again by Reid if he wanted to apologise, said: “The people who should be saying sorry are the last government who left a hole of £22 billion, and they should be sorry for that and they should apologise for that.”

What is Winter Fuel Payment?

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For the final time, Reid gave him a fourth opportunity to apologise during the GMB interview which was recorded at the Labour conference yesterday (September 24).

He said: “I've come in to fix the mess, fix the problems, and that's tough, really tough decisions. The cost of not doing it is to run the risk that we lose control of the economy again. I'm not going to do that because if I do, you will be saying to me in two or three years' time, if we lose control of the economy, will you now say sorry for having lost control of the economy?

"So the apology needs to come from the last government who left such a mess, £22 billion black hole, we can't walk past it, it's a huge amount of money, and if we don't stabilise the economy, we can't keep to the triple lock. And the triple lock is really important for every pensioner because that is the increase year on year. As I say, £900 this year, £460 next year.”