The government’s decision to reverse its deduction in winter fuel payment to a great extent has raised questions about its expenses and savings schemes – and its fiscal rules.

BBC verification is looking at the major numbers.

At that time Labor won the 2024 general election, the department for work and pension Introduced 10.8 million pensioners in England and Wales will be eligible for winter fuel payment in 2024-25.

Payments are worth either £ 200 or £ 300 per house.

The new government, to save money, decided that only pensioners (a separate benefit aimed at low -income pensioners) would receive winter fuel payments in winter – and in winter – and said that the number of individual recipients would reduce the number of individual recipients by 1.5 million.

Now the government has changed the syllabus – after extensive criticism – and, from 2025-26, all pensioners will receive it, although it will return from individuals earning £ 35,000 and above in the following tax year.

It claims that it means 9 million pensioners will now be eligible.,

Its effect is to undo the impact of its initial policy in terms of numbers affected to a large extent.

And some analysts feel that overall net savings for the government may actually be still reduced.

Under the initial 2024 improvement of Labor, winter fuel payments were available only in the obtaining a different benefit for the purpose of low -income pensioners called pension credit.

Last year, the government launched a campaign to encourage hundreds of thousands of pensioners that are eligible for pension credit, but those who do not claim it to start doing so.

Shows the latest data About 60,000 more pension credits awarded claims Otherwise, there may be a possibility of the government’s awareness campaign.

With each annual pension credit claim Government costs £ 3,900 per year On average, former Lib Dame Pension Minister Steve Web has calculated that the total annual cost of these new claims can be around 234m pounds.

This additional cost will be compensated by the government about half of the £ 450M savings claimed by the government for the latest changes for winter fuel eligibility.

When Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced to tighten the winter fuel payment in 2024, he said that there was a need to save £ 1.5BN per year to stabilize public finance.

And those savings were recorded in the budget census of OBR.

Now the savings will be only £ 450m per year – or even less – the government’s finance will open a difference of at least 1BN.

Treasury said that it would address this difference in the next budget in the autumn of 2025 and said that “it would not borrow permanent additional”.

Assuming that OBR does not increase the tax revenue forecast in its GDP growth and budget, the government gives more funds to fill the difference, this would mean that ministers will either have to increase additional taxes or spend elsewhere to shut down the £ 1bn difference elsewhere.

However, it should be noted that £ 1bn is a relatively low amount in the context of public finance.

The government is estimated by OBR in 2025-26 Spend £ 1,347bn and borrow £ 129bn,

It is also worth noting that the government announced earlier this year, the working age of the government is much higher than the savings saving from welfare reforms, changing eligibility for winter fuel payment.

Changes in eligibility for personal freedom payment and universal credit are deducted for disability payments Estimated by OBR The government to save £ 4.8bn in a year by 2029-30.

If the government had to reverse or water those reforms, as some labor MPs are urging, it will cause a great financial headache for the Chancellor. Filling its fiscal rules,

They specify the rules that it must definitely be estimated to balance the government’s day-to-day budget (which except the infrastructure) by 2029–30.

In March 2025, OBR estimated that it had only 9.9bn £ of the “headroom” against this rule, a very small amount of Leve gave the size of overall government spending and borrowing.

Reversing the welfare deduction will eliminate about half of it.

And many economists hope that the anticipated headroom of the Chancellor will be carried forward by OBR as a result of the development forecasts upgraded by OBR in any case in the autumn budget and an increase in the cost of borrowing government market in recent months.