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

WW Peartree said it yesterday and I think someone else did in an earlier post.
Quite upsetting.
I will use my money as I think fit.

Lovetopaint037

They appear to have sorted the doctor’s strike. That is a relief.also promising increased nhs pay. Anger should be focussed on Hunt and the last useless lying government including Truss. They knew about the black hole and they knew it would force Labour to make some hard decisions.

Yes exactly that.

Lovetopaint037

They appear to have sorted the doctor’s strike. That is a relief.also promising increased nhs pay. Anger should be focussed on Hunt and the last useless lying government including Truss. They knew about the black hole and they knew it would force Labour to make some hard decisions.

Another poster has pointed out that the black hole is actually only 2% of government spending/borrowing.

More of a pin prick in reality

No, we don't know her Budget plans yet.

I watched Reeves giving the speech. She repeated said: If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it. But there are a lot of things that the goverment cannot afford else we wouldn’t have a national debt sitting at around 2.7 trillion.

Most media sources are saying the saving will be around 1.5 billion this year. It seems a paltry amount compared to the national debt and the 72 billion that was just sitting in the National Insurance Fund at 31 March 2023, a balance projected by HMRC to have risen even further by 31 March 2024. As I said above, technically that can’t be used to pay a non-contributory benefit but there are legislative ways around this.

I would argue with Reeves assertion that we cannot afford to retain the universal WFA - at least in the short term. To withdraw it just weeks away from when people in colder parts of the UK will need to switch on their heating seems an indiscriminate cruelty.

Declaring something not a problem because it isn't a problem to you personally is the very epitome of privilege. I'm not complaining, I'll manage to heat my home I have options to cut back elsewhere, but I can't casually write off those pensioners who will be severely affected as "there's always some who are caught by the cutoff point" I hope we have an exceptionally mild winter or else pensioner deaths attributable to cold homes could mount.

I think it is Martin Lewis who has suggested that a fairer way would be to look at which council tax band you fall into and those within the lower bands be eligible.
How would this help? Surely smaller houses are cheaper to heat, so you'd still have people living in family houses they have paid for with their own money being unable to heat them. If they sell up and move away from their social networks to buy smaller houses they will be preventing first time buyers from getting on the ladder and pushing up the price of (say) two bedroom houses, not to mention becoming more vulnerable to depression and loneliness.

I think it will push some people to explore going on to other benefits. I have already looked up pension credit for my husband. And a greater uptake of attendance allowance.
In the end it might be counter productive. Also as we pay our heating bills over the year, that money was used for Christmas presents and food so there will be a drop in consumer spending.

annsixty

WW Peartree said it yesterday and I think someone else did in an earlier post.
Quite upsetting.
I will use my money as I think fit.

Here you are in case you are not sure what to say

🖕

But perhaps you are not as rude as posters who sit in judgement on others.

My friends would probably annoy them even more as they give all their spare cash including the WFA to asylum seeker charities😄😄

Quite true. A lot of us are not 'comfortably off'. We are outside the limit for claiming any kind of state help, apart from the pension. Please don't assume that we're all in the same boat as we are certainly not!

Whitewavemark2

Yes already been fed into my budget😊

I agree

we should contribute? Thought we had contributed for years? If they stopped paying for illegals the black hole would soon be filled

jan1956

Whitewavemark2

Yes already been fed into my budget😊

I agree

we should contribute? Thought we had contributed for years? If they stopped paying for illegals the black hole would soon be filled

That is what the labour government has already begun to do.

A group has already been shipped back to Vietnam, and you will see more and more of this happening as the Home Office gets its act in order, with the governments recruitment and training of the processing assessors.

It's lucky everyone is so thrifty.

Lentil soup for us all.

People who are getting the new state pension won't feel the stopping of the WFA as much as we older people on the old state pension as people on the new state pension get much more a month than we do. The difference between the two is £52 per week that means people on the new state pension get £200 approx more every four weeks. See below.......

The weekly rate of the full new State Pension is £221.20 per week. The weekly rate of the full basic State Pension is £169.50 per week.

So before peope on the new state pension start saying they can manage, with the WFA they should realise that they can manage because they get a lot more per month than we on the old state pension receive.

maddyone

Why did anyone think Labour would care about pensioners? They never have done. Remember Gordon Brown’s 11 pence rise one year? Remember Gordon Brown’s tax raid on those people putting money into a pension savings pot? I have no idea why anyone is shocked. This is absolutely typical Labour behaviour. There are several other groups that Labour won’t go after, but pensioners have never been a high priority in Labour’s view. The triple lock won’t last longer than one year in my opinion. Watch this space.

Because we are not in a union, they see us weak as a group but we have our votes and I for one will not ever vote labour.

We don`t count, look at their smirks when the pensioner-bashing measures are announced

This is only the tip of the labour iceberg

Some helpful, thoughtful posts on here which have greatly helped my understanding.

Kudos - in no particular order - goes to:
J52 for that list of possible alternatives;
Merion for well informed, non judgmental posts;
Callistemon for some positive contributions; and of course Doodledog brilliant, thoughtful posts.

Sorry if it sounds like 'marks out of ten' but I just appreciated this thread and wanted to say so. GN at its best is informative as ever.

Many people think that the income limit should be increased but can they explain how this is to be achieved? Not everyone completes a tax return so how are incomes to be checked?

Apparently there are at lest a million pensioners who do not claim the pension credits or other income to which they are entitled.

I'm 77 and I'm aware that my parents and grandparents thought it would be demeaning to claim benefits. But my generation is, I think different.

So I would urge anyone who may be entitled to addtional benefits to go out there and claim them.

Pension credit is a "gateway" benefit.
A person may only get a few pounds, but perhaps other things.

Anyone who is struggling, even if they applied once, should think about reapplying, as amounts change, and they may now qualify.

J52

rosie1959

I find it odd that the supposedly caring Labour party are hitting pensioners who are just over the limit for benefits. They may be just managing but this kick on the teeth will not help.

So what would be your answer?

Give it to all pensioners even if they don’t need it? Very costly.
Means test it? Again costly to administer
Raise the UC credit bar? Then the next layer of missing out would complain.
Raise the SP? Then those pushed into tax would complain.
Of course they could abolish paying tax for Pensioners.
Any other suggestions?

As I suggested further up, I wonder if it would be as costly to differentiate between pensioners who own their home outright and those who pay rent or mortgage. I own my own home, so just being on the State Pension is okay for me. There must be lots of us out there, and it seems to me that other pensioners with this ongoing expense of rent etc., could retain the allowance, but people like me would lose it.

Fine by me,
I'd much rather have a functioning health service and kids with full bellies.
I don't have a high income, I'm on low rate tax but with Labour this money will be spent on things I approve of rather than rich shareholders.

If you just get the new pension and nothing else then it’s probably worth using the benefit calculator. You’re probably entitled to rent and council tax benefits. It’s also worth applying for dental etc on the low income scheme form hc2

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Is there any need to be so rude??

According to Hunt, 10 billion of the 20 billion black hole is the cost of the announced pay rises in the public sector which she has just made .

Thank you NS, I shall - on my "to do" list. No, not alone but OH is on minimum wage.

Peartree I am reporting your post of 12.14.20