U turn on winter fuel payments- is it a good move?

MaizieD

Your response is entirely predictable, Allira. I've found that very few posters are able to admit how lucky we have been. They love playing the 'Three Yorkshire Men' game in their comfortable old age.

I don't think they like the young very much, either, apart from their pet ones, of course, their children and grandchildren.

I'm not playing a 'Three Yorkshire Men' game.

I don't like to say much about my own circumstances on here, as I prefer to try to think beyond that, but what I know for sure is that generalisations about what are, after all, just Marketing-inspired generalisations about 'generations' take no account of sex, social class or geographical location, and I find it offensive.

Even within the UK, a man born in the SE in 1964 to 'professional' parents will have had a very different life from that of a woman born in 1946 to a cleaner and a docker in the NW, and those disparities are repeated in various permutations over and over. There are far more differences than similarities within the 'boomer' generation than most, probably.

Since HE expanded and more people got the chance to get a degree (even at huge personal cost) things have equalised more, but in the 50s, 60s and 70s the vast majority of working class people left school as soon as they could and were expected to contribute to family expenses until they married and had a home of their own. Women's lives were much more different from men's than they are now.

It is fair to say that some 'boomers' (ie those who got free education and were able to buy cheap homes in the 60s and early 70s) will, if they live in the SE and other more expensive areas of the UK have had a 'better deal' than their children and grandchildren. But those 'boomers' who are a decade or more younger (particularly if they are working class), who struggled to get through university or even college, bought in the late 70s and 80s when unemployment was high and wages fell had a very different experience, particularly if they lived in areas decimated by Thatcher and (later) Cameron. The odds are that their own children and grandchildren will be similarly disadvantaged - in inverse proportion to the way the middle classes in the SE are advantaged.

Even those who bought houses and benefited from national salary grades (ie paid the same to live in the NE as someone on the same grade in the SE) often can't progress their careers as it is impossible to buy a family house in London for what they would get by selling a better one elsewhere. Opportunities and any semblance of meritocracy are denied based on that alone, and add in historical sexism and class bias, and it is ludicrous to suggest that everyone born between two dates 20 years apart can be considered as a 'lump'. They can't.

It's not pretending to have lived in a cardboard box to say so.

bought houses, that should say.

Oreo

Poppyred

Responded to the voice of Reform more like. 😂

Being frightened of Reform, as both major Parties now are.That’s a big part of this WFA decision and it’s stupid to think otherwise.

Yes.

Suki. It isn’t costing the UK taxpayer anything. That isn’t how public spending works.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/08/01/there-is-no-such-thing-as-taxpayers-money-2/

But if you want to take that viewpoint, we are all taxpayers, even your mother.

I do wish people would stop talking about taxpaying as a concept which only applies to younger people. Taxation doesn’t stop at 66.

Her WFP assuming her income is under £35,000 will be just 82p a week. If she worked for 30+ years, she has paid her dues and deserves it.

700,000 pensioner households still have income below the Pension Credit limit but haven’t claimed. You may not have met them but they are out there; that is people with an income of less than £11,809 a year, about half the net income of someone earning mimimum wage. I have met many who won’t claim so reinstating the WFP to most pensiooner households will provide a safety net and put a stop to expensive means testing.

I’m a boomer born 1955. Labour Party member but tactical LibDem voter when necessary. I didn’t vote for Thatcher, have never voted Tory.

My mother worked, was a council tenant and vehemently opposed to the sale of council houses. She refused to engage in what she insisted would come back and bite society years on. How right she was. She just kept on paying her rent until she died.

When my late DH and I started out together, the chances of renting a council home in London were zero for a couple with no children, so we bought a tiny flat and lived on beans on toast so we could afford the mortgage.

Yes, the house I live in now is worth more now than we paid for it 42 years ago. We paid more for it than the previous owner did. That’s the law of supply and demand and general inflation. We didn’t buy it to profit. We bought it as a home. How I loathe the expression property ladder as if it’s something mandatory to climb and profit from.

We know that housing supply never meets demand and the reasons for that are many. We don’t build enough for a start. More houses are owned by private landlords than ever before. Record numbers of homes are owned by overseas investors. Record numbers of people own holiday homes. Record numbers of homes stand empty. I am not part of any of that.

Action on Empty Homes say there are over 1 million empty homes in England while over 325,000 people are in need of a home.

Instead of generational finger-pointing we should look at why that is and what can be done to bring those homes into use.

www.actiononemptyhomes.org/

When housing supply meets demand, the heat will go out of the market and prices will come down.

I only care about the value of my home to the extent that the proceeds might be needed to pay for my care at some point. I didn't vote to privatise the care system so it became the plaything of venture capitalists. I have no family. Anything that’s left after care costs is willed to conservation and humanitarian charities. In that way, the value in my home will benefit many.

I’m just an ordinary person born into a working class family. I went to school until age 16; went to work and studied at the same time; worked for 50 years full time, about half of that in public service. I retired four years ago at 66. I still work as a volunteer for an arts charity and for an educational charity teaching English to asylum seekers.

I would welcome the opportunity to sit down with a younger person to discuss why they think I'm the enemy.

I would sit on your side of the table, Silverbrooks.

Inequality has naff all to do with generation - it has to do with class and geography (and often sex), and it suits those on one side of that dichotomy to pretend otherwise.

Why people are daft enough to believe it in the face of the evidence of their own eyes is a mystery to me. But here we are.

Indeed. Journalist Jonathan Lis has summed the WFP up wtte that once you take something away you have to justify why you are giving it back and your explanation will never satisfy everybody. A Pandora's box Labour should never have opened.

Coincidentally, this has just landed from Retirement Living Standards, the amount of annual expenditure required for a minimum, moderate or comfortable retirement (spending not gross income).

www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/

Single

Minimum £13,400, Moderate £31,700, Comfortable £43,900

Two people

Minimum £21,600, Moderate £43,900, Comfortable £60,600

It doesn't mention utility including energy costs.

sharon103

Oreo

Poppyred

Responded to the voice of Reform more like. 😂

Being frightened of Reform, as both major Parties now are.That’s a big part of this WFA decision and it’s stupid to think otherwise.

Yes.

Yes, but does that actually matter? We've got it, and the people who will now get it dont care about the politicking -except it might well make them more friendly to Labour who have given it back.

As long as they actually find out and aren't taken in by the critics.

There is a council election in the UK on Thursday - could be interesting as Labour will be out with the message knocking on every door in targeted places.

Oreo, Sharon, Poppyred, I understand that you think that this is due to Reform, but I repeat my question posted earlier, how can you reference that?
I am looking for more than " it's stupid to think otherwise ".

Chocolatelovinggran Labour had absolutely no intention of reversing their decision until they saw how quickly Reform has become ‘the friend of the people’ and very popular in the polls. Don’t be fooled by any of them…….

Silverbrooks your figures look close to those coming from the Joseph Rowntree trust.

Many of our generation, born during or just after world War 2, knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of us didn’t have luxuries like carpets, fridges, washing machines or even telephones. As for a car, no way could we afford that. This current generation don’t know they are born. We deserve everything we have worked for plus a bit more.

How benefits are allocated has always been contentious... and that applies to all benefits.
The reason basing WFP on Pension Credit had superficial attraction was that it was a simple formula and it took savings into account. But it was deeply flawed by the fact that so many people who are entitled to it do not actually claim it, and that its thresholds are very ungenerous.
I am now in the batty situation of not needing it but will get it because my income is way below the limit that has been set but I have savings. It will as always go to charity.
I have sympathy with the government in its attempt to rationalise this benefit but they have gone about it in a totally cackhanded way exposing themselves to accusations of not caring. It should have been part of a wider measured benefit review rather than being flung out there as a sop to the right wing before the GE votes had barely been counted. The "visuals" of that decision were seriously unwise and somewhat crass.
I am waiting in hope that at some point we will see some truly socialist policies like bringing back Sure Start.

A silly decision not thought out.

nanna8

Many of our generation, born during or just after world War 2, knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of us didn’t have luxuries like carpets, fridges, washing machines or even telephones. As for a car, no way could we afford that. This current generation don’t know they are born. We deserve everything we have worked for plus a bit more.

We do deserve what we have worked for, but in the UK we now want all the free services that our children and grandchildren are paying for as well.

Luckygirl3

How benefits are allocated has always been contentious... and that applies to all benefits.
The reason basing WFP on Pension Credit had superficial attraction was that it was a simple formula and it took savings into account. But it was deeply flawed by the fact that so many people who are entitled to it do not actually claim it, and that its thresholds are very ungenerous.
I am now in the batty situation of not needing it but will get it because my income is way below the limit that has been set but I have savings. It will as always go to charity.
I have sympathy with the government in its attempt to rationalise this benefit but they have gone about it in a totally cackhanded way exposing themselves to accusations of not caring. It should have been part of a wider measured benefit review rather than being flung out there as a sop to the right wing before the GE votes had barely been counted. The "visuals" of that decision were seriously unwise and somewhat crass.
I am waiting in hope that at some point we will see some truly socialist policies like bringing back Sure Start.

Sure Start. What a brilliant resource they were. We had 2 really good ones locally, both now closed. I wonder where young Mums go now to get free advice on all aspects of parenthood?
One centre had enough outside space for a garden. Children were encouraged to plant seeds and once grown they were allowed to take some of the vegetables and flowers home. Such a shame to have lost these.

Allira

^Your response is entirely predictable, Allira.^
Could you clarify that remark please MaizieD?

You seem to have ideas about me which are untrue, so on what basis did you form that opinion?

Sorry, I was really saying that whenever I point out that my generation has been far luckier than those born post about 1970 - 80 there has been a spate of 3 Yorkshire Men posts detailing how hard people’s lives were and how the young don’t know they were born. I knew I’d get such a predictable response from someone…

I would suggest that, as you say you are not a Baby Boomer, you are more likely to have encountered the problems engendered by Thatcher’s economic practices than the advantages those of us born much earlier had.

nanna8

Many of our generation, born during or just after world War 2, knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of us didn’t have luxuries like carpets, fridges, washing machines or even telephones. As for a car, no way could we afford that. This current generation don’t know they are born. We deserve everything we have worked for plus a bit more.

Here’s one of those oh so predictable responses🙄

nanna8

Many of our generation, born during or just after world War 2, knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of us didn’t have luxuries like carpets, fridges, washing machines or even telephones. As for a car, no way could we afford that. This current generation don’t know they are born. We deserve everything we have worked for plus a bit more.

That is the kind of comment (this generation don't know they are born) which antagonises younger people.

That is the kind of comment (this generation don't know they are born) which antagonises younger people.

It antagonises me, too, growstuff 😬

Staged intergenerational strife is never really helpful.

Luckygirl3 writes: it was deeply flawed by the fact that so many people who are entitled to [Pension Credit] do not actually claim it

Exactly so. And that’s why in September 2024, as soon as Parliament returned from summer recess, Sunak secured a Commons vote to try to stop the change while Baroness Ros Altmann placed a fatal motion before the Lords asking peers to supports her in forcing the new government back to the drawing board. People will remember that the discussion at the time revolved around the need for a full impact assessment.

I watch that Lords debate. Impassioned speeches that fell on the deaf ears of Labour’s Baroness Sherlock.

hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2024-09-11/debates/C31BAC4A-8D15-44F8-9C58-417E31494AB9/SocialFundWinterFuelPaymentRegulations2024

But she did say this:

We want everybody who is going to go out there who is possibly entitled to claim this to do so. Some noble Lords have speculated whether, if every single person claimed pension credit who was entitled to it and got the winter fuel payment, we would save any money. In a hypothetical world, if every single person who could get pension credit gets it and gets the winter fuel allowance, do you know what we would have done? We would have taken one of the least targeted benefits in the world and turned it into one of the best targeted benefits in the world. Let us see what happens when we get out there.

A laudable objective but we know that the barriers to claiming are still there, just as they were there in 1997/98 when Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman tried to do the same thing. A whole generation on and nothing has changed.

Now, they have been out there. Of the estimated 760,000 additional households who were said to be eligible to receive Pension Credit, and would therefore still receive the WFP, only 45,800 have made successful claims. Just 6%. That still leaves over 700,000 households literally in the cold.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-february-2025/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-february-2025

Means testing is expensive. Wherever the cut of point is set, there is always a cliff edge.

When Retirement Living Standards are claiming that a single person needs to spend £31.700 a year to enjoy a moderate retirement, the £35,000 threshold that has now been set sounds reasonable. As I said before, at the £200 rate, it amounts to help of just 55p a day which will buy kWh of power, enough to switch on the oven for 30 minutes to warm a meal. It’s a token really as it has long been, just a small supplement to what is arguably the, or one of, the lowest State Pensions in Europe.

Some people are arguing that we will now be robbing Peter to pay Paul but that isn’t how public spending works or shouldn’t be. A budget is set aside for Pension Credit claims. If budgets were to be rejigged to pay WFP more widely, then Liz Kendall now has more certainty over the money that is set aside each year for Pension Credit claims that are unlikely to be made:

This from a report published October 2024:

Pension Credit

The estimates show that:

• caseload: up to 760 thousand families who were entitled to receive PC did not claim the benefit, a decrease from FYE 2022 when there were up to 870 thousand families who were entitled and did not claim the benefit

• expenditure: up to £1.5 billion of available PC went unclaimed, a decrease from the estimate of up to £2.0 billion unclaimed in FYE 2022

* on average, this amounted to around £1,900 per year (a decrease from £2,200 in FYE 2022) for each family entitled to receive PC who did not claim the benefit

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-ending-2023/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-ending-2023

That is the kind of comment (this generation don't know they are born) which antagonises younger people.
It does and rightly so. My friends and I agree that we have had the fat of the land. We could buy houses without parental help, raise a family on one salary, find employment that we had trained for. Young people today don't have the same good fortune.

MaizieD

nanna8

Many of our generation, born during or just after world War 2, knew what it was like to go hungry. Most of us didn’t have luxuries like carpets, fridges, washing machines or even telephones. As for a car, no way could we afford that. This current generation don’t know they are born. We deserve everything we have worked for plus a bit more.

Here’s one of those oh so predictable responses🙄

Here’s one of those oh so predictable responses

And an oh-so-predictable response from you too.

I do have sympathy with younger generations because, seeing the arrogance and smugness of some baby boomers who have had so many advantages that previous and following generations did not have, even on this forum, I can understand how they may feel.

MaizieD

Allira

Your response is entirely predictable, Allira.
Could you clarify that remark please MaizieD?

You seem to have ideas about me which are untrue, so on what basis did you form that opinion?

Sorry, I was really saying that whenever I point out that my generation has been far luckier than those born post about 1970 - 80 there has been a spate of 3 Yorkshire Men posts detailing how hard people’s lives were and how the young don’t know they were born. I knew I’d get such a predictable response from someone…

I would suggest that, as you say you are not a Baby Boomer, you are more likely to have encountered the problems engendered by Thatcher’s economic practices than the advantages those of us born much earlier had.

I would suggest that, as you say you are not a Baby Boomer, you are more likely to have encountered the problems engendered by Thatcher’s economic practices than the advantages those of us born much earlier had.

😂😂😂

No, I've seen all the changes that came about with Women's Liberation, with increased Polytechnic and University places so that more students could go into Higher Education than those of us born in the 1930s and 1940s could.

My DC are the 1970s and 1980s generation and I can see for myself the changes that came about for those born those ten years apart.

Making derogatory remarks about older generations does you no favours, and does tend to prove the point that younger people are making.