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

Oh, FGS. I'm an early 50's baby and I am absolutely certain that I, and the rest of us, had it better than subsequent generations for precisely the reasons you cite about the 60's and 70's. Pre Thatcher...

I'm not necessarily speaking of material possessions, which seem to be the criterion by which some posters judge the era. I'm talking of comprehensive, wide ranging, free health care, free education up to and including tertiary level (not just university but technical colleges too). Cheap housing with an expectation that mortgages could be affordable by one income earner, plenty of jobs available (the economy, being Keynesian, was run to keep unemployment levels low), a push for more education (remember the school leaving age being raised to 16 1972 and the inception of the Open University?)

I know life was not a materially easy as it is now, but it improved over the decades and there was an optimism about one's future, a belief in its improvement, that is very much lacking now.

I am a pre-war baby, born in 1937 and apart from the war years have really had a good life.
My C born in 1965 and 1970 have had it even better.
Born to parents with their own home, uni education paid for, help from parents to buy houses on marriage and now expectations of a decent inheritance from a house bought in 1976 and now worth a decent amount.
I feel for young adults today.
Work until late 60’s and waiting many years to own a home.
I am sure my experience is the same as many.

Allira I've just seen that you've noticed the smugness too. I think we're singing from the same hymn sheet.

Allira

growstuff

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.

No, it annoys the Baby Boomer generation.
Those born before then are beginning to understand why young people resent that generation.

However, it is not helped by such organisations such as the Intergenerational Foundation which, imo causes strife, which was my original point.

My children definitely aren't baby boomers and it does annoy them.

I just scroll on past the threads on GN when posters moan about the younger generation (and there are plenty of them).

Primrose53

To be honest they are running scared! There was such anger and resentment when they stopped the WFA that they could do nothing else but reinstate it. They completely misread the situation like they do with pretty much everything else.

People are fed up with seeing them giving billions to other causes and ignoring British people who have worked, paid taxes etc all their lives.

We have 32,000 illegal immigrants put up in hotels at our expense and 70,000 in other forms of accommodation. It is costing us BILLIONS and if it wasn’t true would be laughable!

It is high time they put their own countryfolk first.

The government doesn't ignore British people. If you look about you, it is younger British people who are moaning about older people receiving a benefit. Illegal immigrants have nothing to do with it.

To be honest they are running scared! There was such anger and resentment when they stopped the WFA that they could do nothing else but reinstate it. They completely misread the situation like they do with pretty much everything else.

People are fed up with seeing them giving billions to other causes and ignoring British people who have worked, paid taxes etc all their lives.

We have 32,000 illegal immigrants put up in hotels at our expense and 70,000 in other forms of accommodation. It is costing us BILLIONS and if it wasn’t true would be laughable!

It is high time they put their own countryfolk first.

My 'derogatory remarks' apply to those Gnetters who refuse to accept that the post war generation (AKA the Baby Boomers) have had far better life chances than any generation before or since. If that is the face such people present to younger generations I don't blame the young for being antagonistic.

Which was my point too.

However, those born in the 1940s and early 50s did not "have it so good" as those who came later. Society changed quite dramatically in the 1960s as did, as I'm sure you know, the economy.

Silverbrooks

Thank you for your reasoned and reasonable posts too.

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

My 'derogatory remarks' apply to those Gnetters who refuse to accept that the post war generation (AKA the Baby Boomers) have had far better life chances than any generation before or since. If that is the face such people present to younger generations I don't blame the young for being antagonistic.

I still say it's all about economics and that Thatcher, on the whole, left a disastrous legacy for the UK.

Suki1964

Crikey! I'm glad upon not your mother!
Your mother's situation is not typical.

Well done her for donating it to the RNLI.

Doodledog

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.

Another sensible post.

growstuff

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.

No, it annoys the Baby Boomer generation.
Those born before then are beginning to understand why young people resent that generation.

However, it is not helped by such organisations such as the Intergenerational Foundation which, imo causes strife, which was my original point.

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.

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.

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.

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

Staged intergenerational strife is never really helpful.

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

It antagonises me, too, growstuff 😬

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.

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🙄

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.

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.

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.

A silly decision not thought out.

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.