Keir Starmer has said it is the Tories who should apologise for Labour’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners.
The prime minister made the surprising claim as he repeatedly refused to say sorry for the controversial decision.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced shortly after Labour won the election that only those on pension credit would continue to receive the payments, which are worth up to £300.
Both she and the PM have blamed the Conservatives for leaving a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances.
Labour bosses are braced for an embarrassing defeat at the party’s conference in Liverpool today when delegates debate calls for the policy to be axed.
In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Starmer was given four opportunities to apologise by presenter Susanna Reid, but failed to do so.
Pointing the finger at the Tories, the PM 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.”
He added: “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 [state pension] 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.”