Call You and Yours: Curbing pensioner benefits

Curbing them? Makes it sound as though pensioner benefits are wildly out of control...

Perhaps if they read some of the posts on GN they would think that pensioners are out of control

They are probably talking about winter fuel allowance, national free bus passes and freedom passes for London, free prescriptions and eye tests, the £10 Christmas bonus and the tv licence for the over 75s. I'm not sure how much per pensioner or how much in total that amounts to each year. Also it is all tax free.

I don't see how they'd get away with abolishing free prescriptions for the over-60s in England, as all prescriptions are free in Scotland and Wales.
I suppose we could just about manage without the £10 Christmas bonus...

Oh, well, the only benefit I can use is the Winter Fuel Allowance so it won't make much difference to me. The higher personal allowance is already being phased out.

I have only just got a bus pass (and, to be honest, we only got them so we could take our DGS as it was something he had never done), and it seems to me that here, at any rate, they are full of pensioners. I am not sure that that is a bad thing, though, as if the pensioners did not use them how many of these buses would still run?

The shopping centres would be empty. I no longer go into town to browse round the shops as parking costs so much [and petrol]. When [if] I have a bus pass I'll be going into town once a week and buying things/having a coffee etc. If they take it away from me when I'm so close to getting one I'll be furious. And I'm depending on the fuel allowance as well, as I'm hoping to retire later this year.

Agree Tegan and gillieb, I think the bus passes probably contribute to the economy in the ways you describe, rather than being a cost, and help to keep cars off the road.
I only drive into town now if my shopping g is going to be too heavy to carry.
I only realised recently that the State Pension was classed as a benefit.
I perhaps naively thought it was a return on all those National Insurance contributions we had paid in all those years. Indeed to get the full pension I had to defer taking mine for 2 years, and pay a lump sum to buy back years when we lived abroad.

National Insurance was not a hypothecated tax – the money just went into the general coffers. Increasing NI was one way Chancellors of the Exchequer would increase tax without being seen to increase tax. Do you remember Gordon Brown making a one-off increase (of 1p I think) in NI to help revamp the health service. This, of course, was not what national Insurance was intended for.

JANE... is that correct that the state pension is classed as a benefit? I was under the impression that my 40+ years of work and paying my NI contributions awarded me my pension!!!!!!!!! so I needn,t of worked at all! x

At the end of listening to "You and Yours" I found myself seeing everybody's point of view. That is except the man who came on and said something to the effect that pensioners (who had, apparently, caused the mess the country's in now) were living on the fat of the land and were getting more in pension than he was actually earning. I couldn't quite make that out because one of the "experts" speaking said that the amount of the average state pension was £12,000 - hardly a fortune. But that seems to be a growing theme these days - blaming older people for the present situation (oh yes, and also the young, the immigrants, the public service workers, the unemployed, etc.)

I liked the woman who came on and said she was fed up with having to justify being given "bloody peanuts" (shock horror - this is Radio 4) when the bankers had been handed billions. And it was good that she pointed out the ways in which older people contributed to the community.

Anyway, I could see why people thought it was unfair that the very wealthy could get bus passes, fuel allowances, etc., etc. (though, as was pointed out, I doubt if someone like that would bother applying for a bus pass). Some people suggested that these extra benefits should be means tested. Given that older people are already notoriously reluctant to apply for means tested benefits, I think they'd be even more unlikely to do so in the current welfare-bashing climate.

I think the suggestion that the basic pension be increased substantially and that peripheral benefits be done away with, using the tax system to claw back payments to the very wealthy, seemed quite a good one.

But even though I am apparently one of that elite group (pensioners) living in the lap of luxury, I say - hands off my bus pass!!

I am confused - the government site says the average state pension in 2012/13 was £124 a week - so where does the £12,000 come from?

I googled Average State Pension, Eleothan, because the figure of £12,000 p.a. sounded way out to me - according to this report it's more like £6,448 p.a. Maybe he meant average income for pensioners, but even so it was misleading.

Average State Pension

I think any more means testing would be a waste of money but I would be happy to pay tax on the winter fuel allowance. Not so sure about being taxed on the bus pass as I don't know how you would value it. I have to use the car to get to the bus and only use the pass about 6 or 8 times a year. Others of course rely on it far more than I do and if it were withdrawn a lot of people would be housebound which was mentioned as eventually costing the country a lot more.

I submit a complex tax return each year, my income is a matter of record to the Inland Revenue. Surely it would be relatively simple to say that anyone earning over, say £50k is not entitled to these extra freebies?

Ana

I went to a talk a little while ago and they said the average pensioner income from all sources was £23,000.
I think they may mean interest, dividends and pensions.

Frank

Hunterf my £50k included a London weighting

£12Kpa would be £230 per week which slightly more than a couple would receive on guarantee credit. Someone has got their proverbials in a twist.

FRANK. I don't know who " they" are , but my average pension is well under half that amount and counting my works pension! "they" need a reality check! x

I think if my sister, who does not drive, was not able to get out most days to the local shopping precinct on the little local bus, her mental and physical health would suffer which would cost the NHS more in the long run. A taxi is £3 each way and she cannot walk for more than about a hundred yards.
She has not worked since she was 19 and had the first of her four sons, but her late husband paid contributions for about 40 years and all her sons are higher rate tax payers. Oddly enough, because of her disabilities, and the fact that she is in a housing association house, her net income is not far short of mine and I have worked in the UK for some 30 years. However, I don't grudge her anything because I would not like her health problems.

Sel

Do you mean 50k after tax?.

matson

There are a lot of people with occupational pensions which are far in excess of the state pension so it would not surprise me if the 23k figure is about right.

Frank

£124 per week is £6.448 a year, right enough. Anything else is a private or occupational pension that has been paid for by the individual or earned from years of work. That "expert" should have his rear kicked.

I agree with you Elegran.
I don't see why pensioners with private pensions should be penalised to give extra money to people with just state pensions.

Frank