A UK government minister stated that plans to reduce winter fuel subsidies for seniors would not be softened after numerous Labour MPs abstained from a crucial Commons vote on Tuesday night.

The morning after MPs voted to strip all but the poorest seniors in England and Wales of their winter fuel allowance, the minister of housing and development, Matthew Pennycook, gave a speech.

A resolution by the Conservatives to overturn the action was rejected 348 to 228.

Although Pennycook acknowledged that several of his colleagues had expressed worry, he stated, "We're not going to water down that policy." We believe that this is the proper course of action.Asked about the government’s decision to award pay increases to public sector workers while reducing winter fuel support, he told Sky News: “What this government has done is implement the recommendations of the independent public sector pay review bodies.

“Now, unless the opposition in parliament are saying they would have rejected those recommendations out of hand, allowed industrial action to continue, which was extremely costly to the UK economy, they would have faced that same decision.”

MPs voted to reject the Conservative motion on Tuesday by a majority of 120, with about a dozen Labour MPs thought to have deliberately abstained and one, Jon Trickett, voting against.

The veteran MP was joined by five of the seven Labour MPs who were suspended after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap: Ian Byrne, Apsana Begum, Zarah Sultana, Richard Burgon and John McDonnell.

“For me, this was a matter of conscience. This cut is not only going to cause even greater hardship for so many pensioners in my constituency who are already living in poverty, but it will also cost lives,” Burgon said on X.

Asked on the BBC about Trickett and what sanctions the party might take, Pennycook said it would be a decision for the whip.

However, it will be the high number of abstentions that will worry Downing Street and Labour whips, with the government trying to use the debate to reiterate its argument that removing winter fuel allowance from all but older people who receive pensioner benefits such as pension credit was a tough but unavoidable choice.

Among those who abstained after giving speeches was Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central, who has been one of the most outspoken Labour critics of the plan and called for it to be delayed and rethought.

Pensioners, she said, “make the hardest budgetary decisions, harder than those of the Treasury, where there are choices. They have no choice. They have to put a roof over the head, they have to pay for their food, and they have to pay for their heating”.The claim that seniors in need could simply apply for pension credit and thereafter receive the payment, according to Neil Duncan-Jordan, the Labour MP for Poole who was elected in July, missed the mark on the existing universality.

Pennycook defended the action by citing the government's financial inheritance from the Conservatives during the morning broadcast round. "We did not expect to discover there was a £22 million black hole in the public finances upon taking office," he told the BBC.