Rachel Reeves has announced that winter fuel payments will only be paid to those on Pension Credit.nsion Credit

Counterbalance. This one isn’t a joke.
fullfact.org/economy/state-pension-labour-conservatives/

🤣

It’s time to move on from the ranting I think. It had to come. No government should continue to pay people who don’t need it a universal benefit. Surely the argument here can only be about the people who are very close to the threshold for pension credit.
What I want to know is what will the government do to mitigate the effect on people near the threshold before the cold weather comes. There are a lot of options to support them.
Obviously raising the pension credit threshold is a priority.
One of the big ones we haven’t heard anything about is the energy price cap, which affects families as well as pensioners. The current cap runs out on 30th September.
Another option is raising the personal allowance, as a lot of pensioners on the cusp will also now be paying tax.
Lots more I’m sure.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-529736-labour-windfall.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202407/medium-65245-warm-homes-plan.png

Well found, Callistemon.

So Sunak was denying the existence of the 2019 Briefing Paper and Reeves is using language very carefully - "fund help" which is not the same as saying Labour would keep the WFP.

All I can find in the Labour Manifesto relating to windfall tax is this where 1.2bn to be raised is going to GB Energy, National Wealth Fund, Warm Homes Plan and a couple of other things.

Warm Home Plan is about grants and green initatives. The inference is that instead of giving us money directly to pay for fossil fuel bills it's going into helping us save on energy costs and generating energy.

But these are medium to long-term initiatives, which is all good but, with the best will in the world, people need help keeping warm over the coming months.

vegansrock

I voted Labour and don’t have a problem with not receiving this benefit. I always wondered why they didn’t just put up the pension by £5 a week instead of a burdensome extra admin task - the reason ? So they didn’t have to increase it with inflation. When I was a young parent everyone got child benefit not means tested - we seem to have forgotten how people were up in arms about changing that at the time.

It is so they can take it away again at any time, like the TV licences. If it is incorporated into the state pension they cannot remove it.

vegansrock

I voted Labour and don’t have a problem with not receiving this benefit. I always wondered why they didn’t just put up the pension by £5 a week instead of a burdensome extra admin task - the reason ? So they didn’t have to increase it with inflation. When I was a young parent everyone got child benefit not means tested - we seem to have forgotten how people were up in arms about changing that at the time.

Child benefit isn't only given to families on benefits though is it. Only the highest earners lose it completely. Removing WFA from everyone who doesn't get PC isn't quite the same.

I have friends and family who did vote Labour and they are shocked and upset. I didn't vote for them and am not in the least surprised. Last year I received WFA for the first time. I gave mine to the church food bank. I would have done the same again.

Hollow laugh

Foxyferret

There is a clip on X dated May 24 when Starmer was having a go at the Tories for considering removing the winter fuel allowance. He was asking for reassurance that this was not the case. Just two months later, guess what.

I found this from September 2023:

www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/29/scrapping-winter-fuel-payments-death-sentence-pensioners-sunak-warned

No 10 has denied Rishi Sunak will scrap the winter fuel allowance for most elderly people, after reports that he was looking at means testing the allowance.

The prime minister was said to be considering cutting back on the allowances of £250 to £600 each winter in order to maintain the triple lock for pensions.

No 10 sources said Sunak was not looking at scrapping the allowance as a policy and that he had not received advice on it. “That is not something we are going to do,” a government spokesperson said.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said ministers should “not be breaking those commitments” that they made to older people in the last election. She said Labour would be bringing in a proper windfall tax on oil and gas companies that would fund help for elderly and vulnerable people with their energy bills.

Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, said: “Scrapping the winter fuel allowance would be a slap in the face for pensioners facing soaring energy bills this winter.

jenpax

I agree with this policy, many older people can easily afford their heating without Government help. I am not yet of an age to benefit from the payment but would feel the same if I were. The Government are keeping the 3 lock guarantee on pensions so older people are not being abandoned. The focus now must be on the huge number of children living in poverty and on the housing crisis!

So children before pensioners. Pensioners struggling to heat their homes/ or eat. No benefits for them.
That's rather a generalised statement from you. How do you know.
Soylent Green coming next.

Foxyferret

There is a clip on X dated May 24 when Starmer was having a go at the Tories for considering removing the winter fuel allowance. He was asking for reassurance that this was not the case. Just two months later, guess what.

Do you have a link please?

Presumably Ms Reeves ran this past Starmer first?
Didn't she? 😁

Foxyferret

There is a clip on X dated May 24 when Starmer was having a go at the Tories for considering removing the winter fuel allowance. He was asking for reassurance that this was not the case. Just two months later, guess what.

Its not been removed though has it🙄

I agree with this policy, many older people can easily afford their heating without Government help. I am not yet of an age to benefit from the payment but would feel the same if I were. The Government are keeping the 3 lock guarantee on pensions so older people are not being abandoned. The focus now must be on the huge number of children living in poverty and on the housing crisis!

I suspect there is going to be a lot of push back on this from the more vocal charities and internet pressure groups. The advice to write to ones MP was a good one.

I foresee there will be some adjustment on this come the autun statement. Either the measures will be delayed until 2025 or the scope of recipients will be broadened to take account of those on the cusp. Possibly both.

There some pretty nauseous attitudes from some of the the "Im comfortable" bunch on this thread.

There is a clip on X dated May 24 when Starmer was having a go at the Tories for considering removing the winter fuel allowance. He was asking for reassurance that this was not the case. Just two months later, guess what.

Callistemon213

^I think it would have been simpler to let the universal payments go ahead this year but legislate in the Autumn Statement to make WFP taxable (one of the options in the research paper) from 2025/26 and claw it back in tax adjustments starting from 6 April 2025^

Tell her, will you! 😃

Actually, would that be counter-productive, ie cost more in administration?

There’s some paper admin goes on, isn't there e.g. sending out the letters notifying us of the WFP - which I’m not sure is strictly necessary beyond the first year so long as we receive the payment. Without digging into my papers, I think the letter only gives a general idea of when WFP might be paid - November to January?

DWP and HMRC communicate. One tells the other what taxable benefits the person is going to receive and HMRC makes the tax code adjustment. It’s the way SP is dealt with so dealing with WFP in the same way would be straightforward.

Reeves really needs to address the issue of people with only state pension (and WFP if it’s taxed) being brought into the tax net because, as I said way upthread, there is no mechanism to deal with this beyond self assessment which would be a burden for many people. Far simpler and cheaper to keep people in receipt of state pension only out of the net by increasing personal allowances.

WFP to overseas residents - Europe only:

www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/if-you-live-abroad

That's been another consideration over the years, discussed in the research paper Section 5.1 the "temperature link". IDS getting very hot under the collar!

Oreo

Best outcome:
RR reads comments on forums and backtracks on the whole thing, or resigns and lets a better Chancellor do the job.

Who do you suggest? At least she has a background in finance and Mark Carney seems to rate her.

Callistemon213

^I think it would have been simpler to let the universal payments go ahead this year but legislate in the Autumn Statement to make WFP taxable (one of the options in the research paper) from 2025/26 and claw it back in tax adjustments starting from 6 April 2025^

Tell her, will you! 😃

Actually, would that be counter-productive, ie cost more in administration?

I don't think it would. My guess is that HMRC have our details anyway. Their computers are set up to work out tax codes and send demands to people who owe tax anyway. It wouldn't be difficult to assume that everybody over SPA has received the WFA and add that to taxable income.

ronib

More chillingly is the prospect of State approved euthanasia….

If Rachel Reeves gets her way it will be mandatory and state funded as the payoff will be terrific for the Treasury.

ruthiek

For a start stop
Paying winter fuel allowance to those Brit’s who live abroad but still
Get it

I thought it had been stopped?

It’s making me so angry. I worked an extra two years to boost my pension and paid into a private one which gives small returns especially after tax.

For a start stop
Paying winter fuel allowance to those Brit’s who live abroad but still
Get it

Best outcome:
RR reads comments on forums and backtracks on the whole thing, or resigns and lets a better Chancellor do the job.

Yes but none of this - if any of it - will/can be announced until the budget.

Perhaps she is reading GN😄 - not.

I think it would have been simpler to let the universal payments go ahead this year but legislate in the Autumn Statement to make WFP taxable (one of the options in the research paper) from 2025/26 and claw it back in tax adjustments starting from 6 April 2025

Tell her, will you! 😃

Actually, would that be counter-productive, ie cost more in administration?

I think it would have been simpler to let the universal payments go ahead this year but legislate in the Autumn Statement to make WFP taxable (one of the options in the research paper) from 2025/26 and claw it back in tax adjustments starting from 6 April 2025. A coding adjustment of £1,000 will clawback £200 from a basic rate taypayer. Higher rate taxpayers can negotiate a smaller adjustment or just bank the overcharge against other income they have to pay tax on at year end.

That could bring some people into the tax net just as Sunak and Hunt's fiscal drag was intended to do. At the moment, Reeves seems wedded to her predecessors’ fiscal rules but she has the power to change them. She could reinstate the Rooker-Wise amendment (which is still on the statute book) so that personal allowances are, once again, linked to inflation which would help keep those on lower incomes out of the tax net or give a blanket uplift to the personal allowance to say £12,800 which would help low earners too.