To resent the U-turn on winter fuel allowance?

If you own one house that you live in, you don’t pay any CGT.
Do you mean stamp duty?

I agree with you op.

They removed child benefit from higher earners..no one seemed to kick up much of a fuss about that. I know plenty of pensioners who are rolling in it and don't need it...why should they get something when we had to pay back CB.

How? Please explain.

How can one cohort born over a span of 20 years be entitled?

We worked for years. There was no childcare support. When l started work women weren’t allowed to join the pension scheme. Single parents were villified, so were gay people. Sexism was rife everywhere.

How can everyone born between 45 and 64 be entitled? The life experiences of those born at either end are completely different.

I supported my Millennial and Gen Z through university. Is this entitled?

I worked from leaving university until l became too ill. Payed all my taxes and NI. Is this entitled?

l struggled through horrible mortgage rates in the 80’s and 90’s. Is this entitled?

l lived under the hell that was Thatcher that felt like forever. Was this entitled?

I supported the miners and went on CND marches, Anti Nazi League matches and demos against turning grants into loans. Was this entitled?

I looked after dm when she was old and think my dc have a crap deal. Is this entitled?

Boomers are the most entitled generation ever.

Once again this is an example of government and media induced intergenerational infighting.

The solution is simple. CB is repaid through tax at a certain level. Why can’t WFA be dealt with similarly.

i understand how younger generations may feel about pensioners receiving WFA and think much of those feelings have been driven by the media.

Older people are portrayed as wealthy boomers, holidaying in the sun, sitting on huge piles of property earned wealth, with large triple locked pensions etc. etc.

For some that may be true, but not for all. And particularly not necessarily for lone women currently in their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.

We are the generations that experienced Married Womens NI, no Home Responsibilities protection (NI credits) when children were young, being locked out of Private Pension funds because we were women, the changing of Pension age with very little notice etc. People in their late 70’s and above are also on a lower basic Pension provision than later generations.

When you add the facts that Supplementary Benefit was often the only route for women through a Divorce system that was heavily in a mans favour in terms of the division of financial assets and it is easy to see why there are so many struggling Women pensioners.

However, I have yet to hear any of my friends in this situation bemoaning their lot. They quietly turned off the heating last winter and replaced it with blankets. As generations before them will have done.

I honestly think we need to understand where all the hype from WFA is coming from. It is media driven and induced by a clumsy government that has no idea of how to create a balanced and fair tax regime. Yes pensioners voted with their feet at the last election round but many of them only did so because of media hysteria.

I hate, and I dont use that word lightly, HATE the current pitting of generations one against the other. It is constant, you cant read a newspaper, listen to a political programme or even sit around a lunch table without the subject of rich boomers, or lazy feckless benefit recipients being broached.

What needs to happen is that the government stops knee jerking with their taxation and benefit mechanisms. Devise a system that is fair for all sectors of society and stick to it. For those on WFA who are deemed not to need it, tax it away like CB, but don’t just whip away a benefit that was important to some cohorts. Recognise that some are in a situation of need because of their own specific experiences at the hands of a society that was far less fair to women in the past.

traps people in poverty and stifles ambition or moves towards self-reliance.

Yes, all those old people who have worked all their lives and now struggle to manage should definitely be a lot more ambitious and self-reliant. they wouldn't be trapped in poverty. It's a real shame we closed the pits, because we could have sent the pensioners down to learn about ambition and self-reliance.

@thepariscrimefiles It amuses me that the hostility towards people who rely on benefits to live suddenly turns to compassion the minute those same people reach state pension age as though the dial suddenly switches from 'burden on the state and hard working taxpayers' to 'deserving pensioner. I don't know whether it's because previous generations of pensioners who had lived through the two World Wars had made huge sacrifices for the freedoms and standard of living that we have today but we are reaching a time when the majority of pensioners will not have lived through or fought in a war.
That's a huge generalisation - I have never been hostile against those on benefits and I don't know many who are. Most of them seem to have cornered that market on this site!

I did not live through a war, but I did fight for many of the benefits that todays generation considers their rights. When I started working the idea that women should be equal in the workplace was not enshrined in law. Equal pay was a laugh. Minimum wage - nope. The right to 28 days paid leave - no. Childcare - no. Pensionable employment - not for the vast majority. I am not complaining about that - things change and hopefully for the better. My life has been immeasurably better in many ways than my mothers. Things move on. But it is not a matter of whether we fought in the war or not. It is about the fact that eligibility for pension credit is well below the minimum income level (as calculated by those overly generous people at the DWP) required for a decent standard of living.

It doesn't amuse me that older people are depicted as reactionary or living the high life, and use that as an excuse to make massive generalisations about how they think or how easy it is to heat their homes at a time of escalating fuel and living costs.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-press/articles/more-than-three-quarters-of-pensioners---equivalent-to-9.2-million---spent-their-winter-fuel-payment-on-fuel-related-costs-last-year/

Yes, that's true, and I do say that about any benefit. I think that means-testing (whether for young or old) traps people in poverty and stifles ambition or moves towards self-reliance.

That aside though, I'd still like to know what people mean by 'needing it' in this context.

You can say that about any benefit though. How do we define who "needs" anything? We pick a threshold, and unfortunately, some people will fall outside it.

Did these pensioners expect to be able to live off the state pension alone? If anyone is thinking this looks like a good option for the future they are very, very foolish.

I think the problem is that it would cost too much to means test it so it was easier to just give it to everyone or no-one.
Yes they had the pension credit to judge it by but there where still a lot of people who just missed out on pension credit but were still struggling financially!

Can someone who has posted about 'those who need it' please define what they mean by 'need'?

Are all pensioners supposed to live a subsistence lifestyle with anything above that debarring them from help to rise above it?

But if everybody's £150 was put into a scheme e.g. healthy start voucher type thing to help reduce reliance on foodbanks wouldn't that be better and less of a postcode lottery?

The majority (not all) of pensioners who can afford to donate their WFA are less likely to live in the most deprived areas and as people tend to donate local this creates a postcode lottery.

Once again this is an example of government and media induced intergenerational infighting.

The solution is simple. CB is repaid through tax at a certain level. Why can’t WFA be dealt with similarly.

i understand how younger generations may feel about pensioners receiving WFA and think much of those feelings have been driven by the media.

Older people are portrayed as wealthy boomers, holidaying in the sun, sitting on huge piles of property earned wealth, with large triple locked pensions etc. etc.

For some that may be true, but not for all. And particularly not necessarily for lone women currently in their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.

We are the generations that experienced Married Womens NI, no Home Responsibilities protection (NI credits) when children were young, being locked out of Private Pension funds because we were women, the changing of Pension age with very little notice etc. People in their late 70’s and above are also on a lower basic Pension provision than later generations.

When you add the facts that Supplementary Benefit was often the only route for women through a Divorce system that was heavily in a mans favour in terms of the division of financial assets and it is easy to see why there are so many struggling Women pensioners.

However, I have yet to hear any of my friends in this situation bemoaning their lot. They quietly turned off the heating last winter and replaced it with blankets. As generations before them will have done.

I honestly think we need to understand where all the hype from WFA is coming from. It is media driven and induced by a clumsy government that has no idea of how to create a balanced and fair tax regime. Yes pensioners voted with their feet at the last election round but many of them only did so because of media hysteria.

I hate, and I dont use that word lightly, HATE the current pitting of generations one against the other. It is constant, you cant read a newspaper, listen to a political programme or even sit around a lunch table without the subject of rich boomers, or lazy feckless benefit recipients being broached.

What needs to happen is that the government stops knee jerking with their taxation and benefit mechanisms. Devise a system that is fair for all sectors of society and stick to it. For those on WFA who are deemed not to need it, tax it away like CB, but don’t just whip away a benefit that was important to some cohorts. Recognise that some are in a situation of need because of their own specific experiences at the hands of a society that was far less fair to women in the past.

I’m not sure it does. I’d lay money that the £150 given to my local foodbank benefited more people in a meaningful way than it would if the government spent it.

All of the posters who have come on to say that they give theirs to charity / foodbanks are proof that they recognise the money can be better used.

Surely it makes more sense for the money to be spent centrally to benefit those who need it in society rather than a haphazard approach of giving money to people who don't need it and hoping some makes it's way to a charity?

I think they are just adjusting the minimum which was too low. Seems fair enough as the minimum limit was causing some poorer pensioners problems. Sounds like the richer pensioners still won't get it.