Tories plan benefit cuts for pensioners

You have every sympathy from me, sodapop.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation that's been changed (and I don't know much about the expat situation, so am not commenting on that either way) I feel that people who acted in good faith when they acted, and have since had the rug pulled from under them have grounds for complaint.

The older we get, the more important it becomes that changes in policy are eased in, as we have less time or opportunity to make up anything we are losing.

What a pain Maggiemaybe you must be so frustrated by it all. Associate membership granted

You are very welcome Dinahmo I get fed up with the criticisms levelled at us by others often with little or no understanding of our situation,

sodapop I'll join.

Lanclassl, how would you decide who 'really needs' the bonus? Should people have to prove that they have nothing before they get it, and how would you have them do this at a cost of less than the £10 you'd be saving? Which possessions would you count as evidence that they didn't 'need' the bonus? A TV? A car? A house? Or is it ok to have spent your money on things like that, but not if you have kept it in the bank?

Regarding travel passes, I think there should be a national system, rather than a postcode lottery. I think that public transport should be free, or heavily subsidised anyway, to discourage single person car use and cut pollution, but it would definitely be fairer if all pensioners got the same concessions - after all, we all paid the same taxes.

Where I live, public transport is very expensive, and a lot of bus routes have been cut, so people living in one village who has a doctor or a friend in another will often have no way of getting there without a car. It is encouraging people to sell up (often to second home owners) and move to somewhere more accessible, which is cruel after they have been part of a community for many years. In fact, a lot of communities are breaking up as a result. If there were travel passes for all, people would use the buses and get about more, which would help the economy and save money on treating depression etc.

....that we’d just use the car a lot more. Around here, and I dare say in other areas with very good public transport, I think they do keep a lot of cars off the roads.

As for prescriptions, I don’t think they should be free regardless of income and assets. I know he was probably an extreme case, but someone we knew would stockpile masses of free items - more than once I counted over 60 in his bathroom - and more than once they were all thrown away by an ex nurse friend of his. This is someone who left 2 houses paid for when he died, and over £1m in cash.

The thing is, he was very tight with money and I know that if he’d had to pay even £2 or £3 per item, he’d never have stockpiled so many prescriptions he didn’t need.
I doubt very much that he was the only one.

A Swedish friend told me that everyone pays - albeit a small amount - for prescriptions in Sweden, with an annual cap on costs for those who need a lot.

While we could afford to pay fares, dh and I would be very sorry to lose our Freedom passes. If we didn’t have them, I suspect

Hear hear to those who wish the £10 bonus should be stopped.
Give the money to those who really need it.
In a fortnight's time I have been told that I will get an extra 25p added to my old age pension.
I won"t spend it all at once.

Can I be an associate member, sodapop? We were told in the mid 70s that what we paid into the German system when working there would be transferred over. Now that my state pension’s approaching I see there’s a gaping 2 year hole where contributions for those years should be. I’ve been trying in vain to get a response about it from the DWP for 12 weeks now, but Google’s warned me that people are being told they’ve to provide their own proof of what they paid nearly 50 years ago.

Weirdly, I did have documents from then, stored in our old coal cellar. Until last year when I opened the drawer to find that they’d been shredded and made into a cosy rodents’ nest. ?

Doodledog

I'm considering starting a support group for those of us who had the temerity to go and live in a country other than UK. Many of us spent all our working lives in UK and continue to pay tax there but are continually criticised for our choices. Free membership

Thanks Elegran.

Callistemon How often your pass is used contributes to the amount that the bus company receives in the next year, after all uses by everyone have ben recorded.
Bus passes are financed by payments from the local authority to the bus companies which are used by the passengers with passes. The amount is calculated from the records of how many times passes have been put through the machines on the buses. There are official tools for the calculations at www.gov.uk/government/publications/concessionary-bus-travel-reimbursement-calculator

@Doodledog

?

I think they should be made to prove that they 'need' the increase. If they have other money, whether they have saved it, earned it or won it on a horse, they should have their bank accounts scrutinised and a clerk in the benefits office should have access to their finances before they are awarded a penny.

Any birthday gifts or presents from parents to make life easier for them should be assumed to be income, and their value deducted from any money they are awarded.

They don't need to use food banks, or their spouses earn money in their own right? No pay rise for them.

When, and only when, they have had to spend enough of their assets to satisfy a punitive mindset and bring them onto virtual poverty level, can they be given a few quid (shared with their partner, if they have one), and there should be no difference made between MPs who have worked all their lives and those who have been fortunate enough not to have to do so, so have not contributed to the public purse.

Only fair, really.

Bus passes:
Do they cost anything if you do not use the service?

I haven't used it for some time and don't intend to for quite some time.

My DH paid 80% of his salary in tax and social security in the Netherlands and on top of that we paid health insurance.

So almost 100% went in tax, social security and health insurance!

I know we pay a lot less tax than many countries but NI has gone up.

I do, however, agree that those who are not in need should not get free bus passes etc. Also the tax limits should be raised for the better off. Of course that is not a vote winner.

For those who are complaining that the UK pension is the lowest in Europe you will find that in Europe they pay a lot more into their pensions when they are working. My DH paid 80% of his salary in tax and social security in the Netherlands and on top of that we paid health insurance.

I see the MPs are being awarded a pay rise of £3300 across the board.

Most people have to prove they have earned a pay rise, but that is clearly not the case with our lot. Even if they have committed what would be a sackable offence in other employment they will still trouser the money.

EllanVannin
Pensioners will only have themselves to feed, one or two in a household. However, the term 'heat or eat' usually applies to pensioners who may not be able to move around and keep warm like younger people.
Heating could be their biggest outlay.

Families using food banks may well have 4 or 5 or more mouths to feed so food could be the most expensive household expenditure.

There were no food banks many years ago, but whether they were needed or not is a moot point as probably many children went hungry then and there was no help.
No, they shouldn't be needed but neither should older people suffer in unheated homes because they can't afford to heat them on an inadequate pension.

Pensioners who don't need it can always refuse the heating allowance or donate the equivalent to charity.

Means testing would possibly cost more.

I do not understand the rush to get rid of the triple lock. All it does is stop pensioners spending power from diminishing over the years. If inflation continues to rise, as no doubt it will, those of us who paid full insurance contributions throughout our working lives to protect our retirement, will be very disadvantaged. The triple lock is, after all, largely based on average pay.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning, EllanVannin.

The fact that we need food banks in the UK at all is a national disgrace, but the fact that they are mainly used by families says nothing about whether pensioners should be looked after in old age.

The very existence of a heating allowance shows that the basic state pension is not enough to heat homes, which should be a basic right of those who have worked and paid tax for decades. In a civilised country this should not happen - a contributory pension should not be a benefit, but a reflection of the contributions made to society during one's working life.

MaizieD

*Who funds the Taxpayers' Alliance

The TPA are very secretive about their funding. But be absolutely sure that they have nothing to do with 'ordinary' taxpayers like us. Their 'constituency' is the very wealthy who resent having to pay any tax at all.

I assumed that might be the case, MaizieD.

Perhaps pensioners aren't cost-effective either, therefore indispensable.

Only certain 80 year olds receive £300, depending on your birth date. Not all receive that amount.

I rarely hear of pensioners visiting food banks as they're mainly those with families as well as those working for buttons trying to feed their families as well as pay the bills.

*Who funds the Taxpayers' Alliance

The TPA are very secretive about their funding. But be absolutely sure that they have nothing to do with 'ordinary' taxpayers like us. Their 'constituency' is the very wealthy who resent having to pay any tax at all.

Why not include it in a decent pension and stop begrudging pensioners the money they have worked for all their lives?

Precisely.

But then they'd have to pay increases on it and wouldn't be able to take it away again on a whim.