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

I got my first ( and now apparently only) winter fuel allowance last year and every single penny went to pay my electricity bill. Even so I sat with hot water bottles for warmth for most of the winter.. sitting room at 17° . So thank you Ms Reeves.... I am in receipt of a very small local council pension... which I worked for... but which excludes me from ANY benefits whatsoever.... thank you.

I’m thinking that too plus our bus passes. Anything they can rob from us they will

Primrose not long ago you were telling us about putting a ‘ring of steel’ around your finances, so that Labour couldn’t take any extra tax from you - tax that would contribute to the good of your country.

I seem to remember you considering splashing out on expensive holidays and new cars.

I wouldn’t have thought you’d be in need of a bus pass!

Casdon

They will be stealing our children next. For goodness sake. I don’t think it’s me living on Planet Zog.

They'd soon send them back.

HattieTopper,
Thai is so very wrong as you have pointed out people
Who are on benefits as on live on benefits seem to have it all , as in monopoly pass go collect £200 !
Having a state pension. & a small company pension ( & by small I mean under £100pm) my self would mean I would not be able to claim any pension credits !
Also being in the WASPI league/ generation of women that have been sidelined in that particular pot it’s yet another blow to us .
Thanks a lot for the support , just carry on paying migrants & supporting everyone who has never paid a penny into the pot !

Labour are penalising the elderly because they assume we will not be here to vote in the next election…

They will be stealing our children next. For goodness sake. I don’t think it’s me living on Planet Zog.

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

Yes kitty thank you, I know that because before I became eligible for free prescriptions I used to buy a yearly prepayment certificate. I guess I’d have to go down that route again. My asthma medications alone cost a lot of money, let alone all the others.

Nicenanny3

Labour showing their true colours. Yet come over on a dinghy having paid not a penny in and get free accommodation lovely and warm as well I would guess in winter, free food, pocket money, extra money if you are pregnant, extra money for each child etc etc. Wonderbar.

Nicenanny8

It makes you realise everything about this is so wrong 😑

A prescription prepayment certificate in around £120 pa (last time I looked) and that buys all your medication for a year.

Primrose53

So many on here were convinced Labour would do great things. How wrong they were. Don’t say you weren’t warned. 😉

Imagine if the Conservatives had stopped the cost of living payments and the winter fuel payments. This board would be littered with vile remarks about Tory scum, filth, robbing b******s.

Spot on!

So many on here were convinced Labour would do great things. How wrong they were. Don’t say you weren’t warned. 😉

Imagine if the Conservatives had stopped the cost of living payments and the winter fuel payments. This board would be littered with vile remarks about Tory scum, filth, robbing b******s.

I’m worried that in the budget that free prescriptions for pensioners will go. I have a number of conditions which necessitate a number of medications. It will cost a fortune for me to pay for them all.

Thank you.

It's not looking very promising.

A couple of thoughts

Since the announcement I’ve spent some time comforting a neighbour who was distraught in tears. She’s one of the just managing group, the CAB and Age U.K. confirm not quite entitled to a means tested benefit of any kind. Not to put too fine a point on it she’s struggling to find anything positive going forward. A proud woman she’ll not tell her family and ask for help from them. She’ll also not willingly trot along to a church to benefit from a free drink, to her that’s unacceptable charity. She’ll also not accept a coffee and chat with a neighbour this winter as she told me she would be embarrassed to invite someone into a cold home. So she’ll cut back on the minimal treats in her life, put on a brave face and keep going with little pleasure. How many are like her?

If really necessary (and I’ll take some convincing) it would have been humane to announce the change in the Autumn budget to come into force in Winter 2025. This would give people the chance to re-jig their own budgets, if indeed that’s possible. It seems there is no understanding of holes in personal budgets.

I’m trying not to second guess what will come next, too many potential scenarios are frankly frightening.

Callistemon213

Ladyleftfieldlover

I honestly think Rachel Reeves is genuinely very annoyed at the state of the country’s finances. I don’t think you can say that Labour don’t like pensioners! I’m sorry that some GNs will suffer because of the decision on fuel allowance being limited to those on various benefits. Sadly there has to be a line drawn and there will always be people caught just in the wrong place. Don’t despise Labour yet.

Liam Byrne left that note: ‘I’m afraid there is no money’ and when this has been mentioned on GN posters have been told that the economy does not work like that, it is not like a household budget and that the Government can create money for the building of infrastructure which will in turn stimulate the economy. Tax does not fund spending, so we are told.

Now we've been told we're over-drawn (like having a huge over-draft on the household budget) and have to tighten our belts because the Government can't afford anything.

The chancellor laid blame for her decisions on the previous government, accusing the Conservatives of having "let people down" by making "commitment after commitment without knowing where the money was going to come from"

But if the Government can create money which in turn stimulates the economy, what is the problem?

What am I missing, please?

You're not missing anything. It's Reeves who is 'missing''

I can't defend this in any way at all, but I've been saying for ages that I thought Reeves economic ideas were very suspect.

Austerity was the stupidest policy after 2010 but Labour doesn't seem to have learned any lessons from it.

IMO whatever 'hole' we have in the national finances is a consequence of years of running the economy for the benefit of the wealthy, the banks and big businesses, failing to tax back the excessive amounts of money that flows upwards to them from the poor and the 'middling' classes.

Labour painted itself into a hole with its ridiculous 'fiscal rules' and this is the result. As predicted by many. I only hope that the Autumn budget takes some of the sting out of this by unfreezing tax allowances and taxing sources of unearned income at the same rate as earned income.

I can't see her much vaunted relationship with businesses being much use if she makes the population too poor for it to be worthwhile for them to invest in the UK.

Casdon

merlotgran

Ilovecheese

I am a bit puzzled about why those people who supported the Conservatives are grumbling about Reeves behaving like a Tory.

She isn’t.

The tories didn’t hit pensioners

Yes, they did. See the narrative regarding poorer pensioners here.
ifs.org.uk/publications/how-have-pensioner-incomes-and-poverty-changed-recent-years

The tories hit all of us. NHS, police, adult and children’s social care, cost of living crisis.

ronib

Pensioners have also lost £300 cost of living payment.

Not all of them. It was means-tested in the first place.

I’m stunned by comments here criticising this decision, from posters who don’t ‘need’ wfa

Me too Iam!

Are you on your own with the £180 dalrymple?
It seems to me that you should use the benefits calculator I posted above.

merlotgran

Ilovecheese

I am a bit puzzled about why those people who supported the Conservatives are grumbling about Reeves behaving like a Tory.

She isn’t.

The tories didn’t hit pensioners

Yes, they did. See the narrative regarding poorer pensioners here.
ifs.org.uk/publications/how-have-pensioner-incomes-and-poverty-changed-recent-years

A good reminder that many women have been underpaid state pension. In the NIF report I referred to just upthread, there was a contingency of 1.8 billion set aside for pension underpayments to women. Read section 2.3 of the report. Hopefully most cases have now been identified but always check that you are getting what you are entitled to.

Ilovecheese

I am a bit puzzled about why those people who supported the Conservatives are grumbling about Reeves behaving like a Tory.

She isn’t.

The tories didn’t hit pensioners

I am a bit puzzled about why those people who supported the Conservatives are grumbling about Reeves behaving like a Tory.

It looks as if you cannot have more than a five year age gap between you 🤔
No, I read that wrong.