MINISTERS were urged to “immediately” bring Britain’s six biggest energy companies into public ownership and reverse cuts to the winter fuel allowance at Usdaw’s annual conference today.

Labour needs to win back the trust of working-class communities following its rout to Reform UK in last week’s local elections, delegates heard.

Chants of “no” were heard at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens as they hit out at profiteering by energy giants during the cost-of-living crisis.

Moving the motion, Leeds Private Trade delegate Iain Dalton said: “This is a step that should be taken immediately: we have all seen in the last week that politics like the cut to winter fuel allowance in the elections just gone.”

He criticised the Labour government’s decision to means-test the winter fuel payment in the “context” of the soaring fuel costs following the war in Ukraine. 

Citing research by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition that last December warned just 20 energy companies have made £483 billion in profits since the start of the energy bills crisis, he said: “Leaving the necessities of life to the capitalist markets is a recipe for this sort of situation.”

He added that Labour supporters “voted for change” in the last general election, not cutting the winter fuel allowance or refusing to compensate Waspi women.

“Working-class families feel let down by these policies,” he said.

“It’s broken the trust of many working-class people and pensioners in this government.”

The government’s impact assessment for the winter fuel benefit cut, which found three in four pensioners don’t need it, was criticised during the debate.

Seconding the motion, which called for a “proper” assessment to be carried including factors “like income, living costs and geographical location, Retired Members of Scotland delegate Bill Lynch said: “I would respectfully suggest that they have never been to Dundee or County Durham or any of your towns.

“Not only is it grim up north, it is also cold up north.”

The debate came a day after, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s former transport secretary Louise Haigh urged him to stage an “economic reset” and rip up tax rules to get voters onside after Reform UK’s success in the local elections.

The MP said that welfare reforms and the loss of winter fuel payments were “totemic” for many voters.