For Newsnight: should we end universal benefits for better off pensioners?

Excellent contribution on Newsnight, Geraldine. In fact it prompted me to join Gransnet. Take your point about relatively small % of pensioners earning over £30k, where should the line be drawn etc. but perhaps the 'very rich' ought to lose fuel allowance and so on, to an extent on principle but also because this specific debate is essentially a red herring. Let's deflate it. The debate that's needed, as you pointed out, is to do with how we wish, in the 21st century, to position older people in society at large.

I would like to see all the pension add-ons abolished, but only if this was balanced by a rise of, say £10.00 a week, in the Minimum Income Guarentee for those over retirement age.

This would compensate the pensioners on the lowest incomes for the loss of all the bells and whistles, those on Pensions savings credit would also benefit as rhe amount they receive would also go up as would those currently above Pensions savings benefit levels, who would now qualify for it. Those on many medications could buy a prescription season ticket that now costs £104 a year so that their medical costs would be limited to that amount.

I think all these add-ons are demeaning to older people, they suggest that we are incapable of managing our finances and need extra little bits of ring fenced money to ensure that we visit our family/get our medication/ heat our homes and do not just waste the money on bingo and custard creams.

In ten years as a benefit advisor every older person I met paid their fuel bills by monthly direct debit, so from that point of view the winter fuel payment was irrelevant as fuel bills were smoother out over the whole year.

And glamma! Goodnight both.

I'm glad it's not just me as well, Annobel - think I'll call it a day/night!

Geraldine well done putting across some of the points,the other two where as good as chocolate fireguards and their views where the same as we have listened too for a long time so nothing new there.
anagram my laptop very slow in finding threads today,I thought it was me but may be wrong.It took me ages to log on and then find the thread I wanted.

I'm glad it's not just my laptop, nag. Virgin have just upgraded my broadband so I was a bit puzzled by the slowness of Gransnet!

Goodness, it's so slow on here tonight - every post I make takes ages to register, and going from one thread to another takes even longer....(sorry, not relevant to the subject, but had to comment)

I agree with Annobel - you did a good job, Geraldine, and managed to get across a few of the points raised on here. I thought you were very impressive!

Thank you Geraldine for your contribution to the Newsnight item. I wouldn't call it a debate because the MP - Boles, was it? - was just reiterating well-worn attitudes which prefigure the break-up of the welfare state including benefits for older people. Lord Adonis was no B****y use. You were talking sense especially when you stressed that there is a need for a big debate about the place of older people. Glad you mentioned that so many grandparents provide child care. Does the Government have any concept how much this saves the economy? And does it have any idea how much elderly carers save the economy by looking after their less able partners or even more elderly parents?

This is a debate which needs opening up. We talk about pensioners as if they are a homogenous group when clearly they are not. There are very many wealthy pensioner who do not need universal benefits and many poor ones who are still unable to manage despite them. I would welcome a shift from benefits to a pension which is sufficient for a person to live on.

I also feel that there are a lot of poor families who would benefit from additional income. After all it is these families who will provide the workers of the future.

I always feel guilty when I catch the local bus into town for free and the young family travelling with me have to pay a huge amount in fares. Instead of bus passes could we not have subsidised public transport for all.

As pensioners we are often insulted when are age is taken into account but clearly not when it comes to accepting universal benefits.

I would gladly accept a change in exchange for a fairer society.

I must now go and catch Newsnight.

My view may appear unpopular but I have to say I agree. Giving free bus passes
And winter fuel allowances to people who are already well off ( just because they have reached a certain age)is so unfair when there are young people and children living in real hardship who genuinely can't afford a trip into town on the bus or worse still to keep their home warm
In the winter.

Wow, pogs,
Some of us will not be too impressed with your last paragraph!

I would absolutely accept it if money was not wasted by governments of any colour.

Provision could be made for pensioners who accept they are comfortable financially to give it back on a yearly basis as their circumstances may change and the money might be required. Perhaps you could re-direct the fuel allowance to a government account which honestly channels it into care for the elderly.

It is obvious nobody wants to loose something that is free but there is a hell of a lot of pensioners who are comfortable and do not need help, that's why cruise ships are doing a roaring trade.

Thanks J, so much easier to be eloquent with the aid of a keyboard

Thanks, johanna. We didn't know we could apply for a reduction in the TV licence fee - DH is registered blind...Cheers

Beautifully spoken jess

"Universal benefits" has a grandiose ring to it that makes it sound as if we are being given the moon and the stars. Those who are better off are still paying tax at the same rates as other people - on pensions, investment income and on any part time earnings. We are also contributing a lot of unpaid work as carers and volunteers.
Those who have cars are probably not claiming their bus passes - they go to them that need them.
The cost of means testing the fuel allowance would not justify the exercise. And it goes to those who are too proud to claim means tested benefits, many of whom live in fuel poverty.
Then there are free prescriptions. There are an awful lot of older people who would get their prescriptions free anyway. Children and teenagers get free prescriptions so why not over 60s? So universal benefits does not amount to a huge hill of beans when you pick it apart. Good luck with Newsnight.

annobel, they probably think that your eyesight has degenerated so much by that time that you deserve it for free.

I remember reading the TV license many years ago and it stated that the partially sighted could claim a discount.

Priceless!!

I agree, johanna. If we're to be means-tested, so should parents. It's ridiculous that child benefit is paid to very high earners.

I am very happy with the benefits I have now - prescriptions, bus pass, winter fuel allowance, rail card, but I am not yet old enough for the free TV licence and really I don't see why, if I can afford it before 75, I am deemed unable to afford it after 75. Are people of 75+ expected to spend their whole lives sitting in front of the TV?

Well, well,
a buspass, a winter fuel allowance, and free prescriptions! Who would have thought it after 50 years of paying top rate tax??????

Joking apart,if there is to be an end for universal benefits for pensioners that should then run parallel with an end to universal child benefit.

What time and channel please?

Geraldine if you do go on tonight please make the point that we are the generation who vote, and we will! I think many of us are fed up with all this granny bashing. We worked damned hard for what we have and will not give it up lightly.

No because the cut off point would become lower and lower in real terms and most people have paid for those benefits throughout their working lives. Anyone who's reached pension age and older deserves the extras they get. I'd rather a few who don't appear to need a benefit gets it rather than someone who does need it not getting it.

I suppose it depends where the cut off point is. No point doing it if it is only for the rich as there are not many of them. What do they mean by 'better-off'? If it is those of us who have worked hard all our lives and saved so don't get top ups it is so unfair.

People have a choice about having children, none of us has a choice about getting old!

Free prescriptions are important to many older people and if they have to pay they won't be able to afford much needed medication. Maybe they will then become a bigger burden on the health service or perhaps we should all just go off and die!

It is already very difficult for many who don't live in big cities. I often hear MPs on the radio talking about Freedom passes which they think we all get but we don't, they are only for people living in London. If you take away bus passes from older people many will be very isolated.

There is a large number of older women who are already discriminated against as they gave up work to bring up their children when there was no childcare. Because they had to accumulate 39 years of NI to get a full pension many do not get one. Now credit is given for time taken to look after children and only 30 years are required and there is going to be a minimum pension but none of this is going to apply to this group of women. Are we going to be hit yet again?

How will it be managed? More means testing? Creating more work so less saving?

Perhaps if it only applied to those paying higher rate tax it might be acceptable except for the prescriptions which should be the right of all older people.

I do hope you go on television and represent us. I usually go to bed around 2200 but will stay up to watch.