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

David49

Prescriptions are highly likely to be next and those with long term issues can get an annual exemption. Giving benefits to those that don’t need it is very wasteful, it’s about protecting the vulnerable not gifting the well off.

Who do you class as well off? If free prescriptions are only there for those pensioners who receive benefits then a whole load of pensioners who are just over the threshold will also have to pay, and believe me they are not well off.
If all the extras are to be taken away from pensioners then the state pension should be increased.

Doodledog there may be a few posters as you describe but the vast majority here are shocked that a Labour government are doing this.I think and hope that this government will put some really good policies in place but this one, WFA cut is a very bad move.

Nicenanny3

6 JANUARY 2024
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the cost of living crisis has left her “increasingly short” financially, despite her £86,000 a year salary.

The Labour MP has said she “winces” at her bank balance each month with her mortgage, gas, electricity and food bills all adding up.
“What makes me wince is when I look at my bank statement and I find that the money coming in is increasingly short of the money going out,” she told GB News
(Evening Standard Newspaper)

*What a hypocrite she is*

If my memory serves me right Rachel Reeves husband is a high grade civil servant earning £110,000…

I have been scathing about the Tories and they deserved it. Labour are not exempt from bouts of political incompetence and I think the WFA decision is a mistake for two reasons: it deprives pensioners near the poverty line of heating in the coming winter and it opens the door to a raft of Telegraph/Mail etc., wild speculation about other potential cuts affecting the elderly.

Imagine the outrage if the Conservatives had done this!! Every vile name would have been thrown around.

The Conservatives were planning to do it. Read the thread.

Merion

The Conservatives were planning to do it. Read the thread.

But they didn’t.

Merion the Conservatives were planning to cap the cost of social care in October 2025 - Dilnot is very disappointed.
This thread is very long so an accurate description of the particular post is appreciated.

GrannyGravy13

Merion

The Conservatives were planning to do it. Read the thread.

But they didn’t.

…Because they lost power. Contentious policies are always implemented by any government at the beginning of their five year term.

I find it interesting that MPs receive a winter heating allowance. Why? Oh yes, that would be to heat the second home bought and paid for by the tax payer. I don’t know the amount but it was mooted upthread that it is in the region of £3000+. It’s interesting that Reeves left that in place.

I disagree entirely with posters who have complained about the UK sending money/arms/ aid to Ukraine. We stop doing this at our peril. Ukraine are fighting a war for Europe. I won’t elaborate further because this isn’t the thread about Ukraine, but am just countering those arguments.

There is an ongoing review of rewards for MPs maddyone, it’s a separate process which the chancellor doesn’t have the power to control or announce.
The current focus is on stopping MPs other roles taking precedence over their MP roles, which is vital to make them more accountable.
www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/23/uk-government-to-prevent-mps-taking-on-lobbying-jobs

Oreo

Doodledog there may be a few posters as you describe but the vast majority here are shocked that a Labour government are doing this.I think and hope that this government will put some really good policies in place but this one, WFA cut is a very bad move.

I don't disagree, Oreo. As I've said many times, in RR's place I wouldn't have done it. I believe in universal benefits that recognise that there are different times in life when people need help - maternity, having young children, retirement being amongst them.

I think that if we all paid in enough there would be money to have those things, but I am shouted down by people saying that (eg) mothers of school age children should be able to stay at home, pay no tax, get free NI contributions and if the 'family income' qualifies as a result of their not working get the CB that is denied to two earner families. People baulk at paying higher tax, too, saying they will protect their assets from being used to fund other people, they have paid in for years (as though the rest of us haven't) resent being expected to give more, and that many of us live in houses worth over a million pounds. A few will, obviously, but the law of averages says that most of us won't, and many people can't afford a house at all, particularly younger generations.

We can't have it all ways. If people don't want to insist that we all pay in, then how can we all get out? The only way is to means-test, which as I tire of saying is invidious.

I don't support the withdrawal of the WFA, however much I am accused of doing so. I think there are a lot of anomalies in the complaints, though. It's not long ago that people were saying that there is no money tree, so we can't keep giving to benefit claimants, people with more than two children and the disabled.

Maybe they can freeze the 84 million to Africa (as its quite hot there at moment) & look after our elderly. My mum looks after my dad who has Alzheimer’s 24/7- last year they both sat with hot water bottles & blankets- they aren’t as poor as some old age pensioners but she is paying for carers to come in AM/PM apart from attendance allowance they get nowt!

www.facebook.com/share/v/pEx5fZLFmAYWkW5M/

Watch this watch a hypocrite Starmer is talking about the winter fuel allowance.

karmalady

I understood that only people on benefits will keep it

Certain benefits not all benefits

🥀 😐
Keir Starmer 3 months ago...

"Last year the PM was apparently drawing up plans to remove the winter fuel allowance from pensioners... will he now rule out taking pensioners winter fuel payments off them to help fund his... black hole?"

Just watched the Starmer link, what a hypocrite!

Nicenanny3 you left out 46 million black hole. To get it down to only 22 million in such a short time is amazing as an inherited gift.
The only black hole I can see is this so called government- shame they can’t be absorbed into the universe full of black holes.

Or was it billion?

ronib

Merion the Conservatives were planning to cap the cost of social care in October 2025 - Dilnot is very disappointed.
This thread is very long so an accurate description of the particular post is appreciated.

In 2019, the government commissioned a briefing paper on WFP. The published paper is dated 5 November 2019. It sets out three options for reforming WFP, to target the payments towards the poorest. Those options were:

• means testing - paying WFP only to people in receipt of Pension Credit
• taxing the payments
• withdrawing the payments from high income pensioners

The paper discusses the various administrative complexities in implementing the different options amd acknowledges this:

Withdrawal at a certain threshold would also create a “cliff edge” problem. This could be tackled by introducing some sort of “taper” as has been done for the Child Benfit High Income Charge but this could be complicated and expensive to administer.

It was noted that: limiting WFP to households in receipt of Pension Credit would mean that a significant number would lose out because of incomplete take-up of the benefit.

A month later, there was a General Election. The new government was focused on Brexit; a pandemic was about to sweep the world, then the war on Ukraine and the resulting energy and cost of living crises. The timing and economic pressures on people were clearly not right to be making such a change but I am in no doubt that the previous government had been planning reform else they would not have commissioned the paper.

I think Reeves is picking where this left off. In her speech on Monday, she acknowledged the issue regarding Pension Credit take up. It remains to be seen whether her Autumn Statement includes any taper relief or other measures to help those whose income puts them just outside the limit for Pension Credit.

Rachel Reeves claimed £214,000 in expenses last year. What a hypocrite she is. Shameless.

Starmer claims (in the link) that there is a 46 billion black hole.
Now apparently we are told there was an unknown about black hole of 22 billion.
How can that be? Starmer says there was a 46 billion black hole, therefore Labour knew about it.

Poor Rachel Reeves, she really must be feeling the pinch.
What was that about rich Conservatives?

Merion that’s a welcome explanation so thank you.