Peers wanting to remove pensioners' benefits

gilly I share your pain.

Joelsnan well said.

smileless please could you clarify? Are you saying pensioners should get nothing from the government? Pensions come out of the welfare budget I believe.

janipat I think I explained that earlier and GA has shown us the KPMG report too. I remember telling my boss about the WFA some years ago because he hadn't claimed it. Can't remember if I claimed mine or if it just came.

I agree with others that we can give it to charity, I personally give more than that as I expect many others do. I like to think that the charities I give to spend the money more wisely than the government!

I live in Manchester and have recently received my bus pass at nearly 65 ,I asked the gentleman at the tram office who explained that I should scan my pass at the beginning and end of my journey and that will ensure the transport company in my case transport for greater Manchester get paid .Janipat hope this answers your question.

OMG I have no faith whatsoever in the HMRC *Nonnie. Speaking as a small employer who once owed them a relatively small amount of money after a customer went bust on us, They made my life a misery ! And whats worse is that I am sure the woman I dealt with, enjoyed every minute of it .

kittylester
It's a bit silly to compare 'then and now', it's a completely different world, nonnie, with different norms

This old chestnut is always rolled out when anyone mentions a little belt tightening and saving for needs for the 'spend now credit card' generation.
It is not a different world. It is a different attitude to needs and money. Continuously pandering to the new world thought only goes to reinforce the entitled attitudes of some.
We do not help the following generations by always treating them as needy.
Will the younger generation be happy on reaching retirement to have all of these benefits unavailable to them, or will they be lobbying for their reinstatement when they become pensioners.

Yes Kitty but that is what happens all the time, it is why the younger generation keep saying we have made their lives difficult because they compare not being able to buy houses with us having bought ours. It is inevitable.

Someone above has said about packed commuter trains and another about the cost. I had to deal with that every day, nothing has changed. I spent 22 hours a week on travelling into and out of London to work.

gilly your faith in HMRC is commendable but they haven't got my tax right in 10 years! No, I don't have a complicated pension but they simply get it wrong and I have to argue every year.

The answer is in the report and should be in the media scaremongering engendered by it Nonnie

Does anyone know how the free bus passes are costed? Does the local authority pay for every trip made, or a set sum per pass issued? I've tried googling but can't seem to find the answer.

GGMK3 I can see where you are coming from when you say "A means-tested pension would be worked out on both income and savings which seems reasonable." but unfortunately the cost of means testing would probably equate to roughly the same amount saved.

I also wonder what the effect of such a rule regarding saving would have on younger people. I already know someone who cashed in their pension at 55 because they said they would only be slightly better off at retirement and that the state could keep them. When I was working most of the younger people I recruited refused to pay into the pension scheme despite it being the equivalent of a pay increase of around 15%. If they knew they would be penalised by saving such people would ensure they didn't have any savings when they retired. I think the unintended consequences could be quite big.

marye once again you haven't answered the question which was: "marye what would you put in place of the triple lock?"

maryeliza54 I have to admit I have not read the report and am only going on what the papers say. I would appreciate any headline facts you have drawn from it and short precis where applicable. Without that it sounds very biased and I would definitely appreciate a breakdown of their methodology.

As far as I'm aware you have to claim the free TV licence, and the bus pass, but the WFA is automatic. Those that don't need the licence or travel concession could simply not claim them, and maybe we should lobby to be able to register to withdraw from the WFA. Of course you'd need the safeguard that if somebody's circumstances changed they could get it reinstated. And isn't the £10 Christmas bonus still paid? That never changed from its inception, and is of so little value I'd like to see it scrapped. Maybe that would leave enough in the pot to give the poorest pensioners a worthwhile sum.

I realise that but tax would have been paid on the original earnings.1lm

I agree kitty re the giving to charity. It turns what should be a resource fairly distributed according to need into one decided by personal preferences. As for pensions, the contributions were tax free.

Giving to charity doesnt help the people who could use the money in the form of benefits - such as poorer pensioners.

Someone up thread talked about 'rich pensioners'. There will be lots of 'comfortable' pensioners, such as Dh and I who can manage without these add ons but which would hugely benefit people with less money.

Something to be remembered though is that most of the people with good private pensions will have paid taxes on their way to retirement.

Are all those pensioners wandering around the shopping centres actually spending money though Labaik or are they just killing time?

I agree we should be encouraging people to use public transport but for those of us without free passes it is VERY expensive. I feel so sorry for my DD (and plenty more like her) on a low wage and paying a fortune out ever week in fares for 3rd rate travel.

There's nothing to stop people that don't need these benefits giving the money to good causes. I'm sure that my local shopping centre would be half empty most days if people didn't travel in using their free bus pass. Also our local post office has just closed and a lot of the OAP's are having to travel into the nearest town to get money/food etc. Everything possible must be done these days to encourage people of all ages to use public transport whenever possible; I use the train more often nowadays and can offset the cost by using my bus pass to get to the station....

Leaving aside all the other issues, I agree with others that the House of Lords is in no position to pontificate on what the average pensioner should receive or otherwise.
They live a life apart in their gilded surroundings and should look inward before legislating for everyone else.

Research conducted by KPMG found that for every pound spent on the bus pass, £2.87 was produced in benefits to bus pass users and to the wider economy. It demonstrates the additional economic, social and environmental value of the bus pass by: supporting volunteers and carers, encouraging spending in shops, reducing congestion and pollution and improving the health and well being of older people who use buses.

It’s estimated that between 35-40% of journeys are understaken for social purposes such as visiting friends and relatives. Around 25% of bus journeys taken by people aged 65+ are for medical appointments. (Age UK Report)

I do a full time, unpaid job in the voluntary sector and I use my bus pass for almost all my travel. The area I live in is semi-rural and bus travel is eye wateringly expensive, so before I had my bus pass the costs to my charity were substantial. My area has a high number of retirees and the vast majority of them work in the voluntary sector - free travel encourages this participation.

I agree that no matter what your thoughts are on the various benefits/concessions for older people the triple lock on pensions is unjustifiable. If the various benefits can be fairly and cost-effectively means tested then I would certainly not object. I would want to avoid the situation where because someone is £1 better off than someone else they are suddenly denied hundreds of pounds worth of benefits. To explain my own parents benefited many years ago, that because they were in receipt of just over £1 a week in a "qualifying benefit" they had their entire council tax paid for them. Someone who didn't quite qualify for that £1 was therefore vastly worse off than my parents. I'm not sure if the same applies nowadays.

"it's a completely different world with different norms" yes I agree with that, we are all of our time, I've moaned to my kids about some of the expensive trappings in their lives, but the fact is you can't always stuff the genie back into the lamp once it's out. Quite possibly we'd be the same if we'd grown up with the technology our children have.

I do remember expensive mortgages, however it was much easier to get on the housing ladder, the ratio of borrowing required as a percentage of income was far less than it is now.

The value of a bus pass depends very much on where you live and the availability or otherwise of buses. Just about useless in my area and impossible to get to our nearest hospital realistically by bus.

Would you not do any of those things you describe if you had to pay even just 50p though travelsafar?

The younger generation will be old one day and they will miss out on all the benefits if they are taken away now

I fully expected to retire at 60, but the goal posts have now been moved to 67 years and 4 months. Likewise the free bus pass. So many of my generation will not enjoy any kind of retirement that past generations have had anyway.

I use my bus pass quite frequently for hospital visits and shopping in other towns. I feel that by doing this i am helping to reduce the amount of traffic on the road, especially when the roads are busy. I leave a car parking space for someone else to use, i have the time to stand or sit at a bus stop to wait for a bus if the expected one is cut for what ever reason, i am keeping a bus driver employed in his/hersjob by using the service. I feel part of the community by chatting with other people at the bus stop and i get the pleasure of seeing things enroute and it means i havent spent the day cooped up in doors with nothing to do and no where to go. Many older people feel the same i believe, their bus pass enables them to have some kind of a social life too, they can get to clubs, the pictures or meet friend etc. Why would you want to take that away???? I must admitt i am not bothered by the TV licence as i still pay for that by direct debit each month so dont really notice it. I would miss the heating allowance though. My husband has COPD and needs to keep warm as coldness affects his breathing and i have no quarms about putting the heating on when ever it is needed as i know i have the 200 towards the heavier months of usage. The younger generation will be old one day and they will miss out on all the benefits if they are taken away now.I feel the money saved will just be swallowed up and no one will actually notice a huge change in their life.Whereas OAP would, if these things were taken away.

Exactly dragon the ratio of earnings to house prices was incredibly different. It’s absolutely ridiculous using the issue of high interest rates without the context of house prices and it’s also ridiculous using that as a critique of the suggestions put forward in the report