To resent the U-turn on winter fuel allowance?

Perhaps it should be means tested to the same income level as CB.

I don't understand this argument. Why is it the same as CB plus when my parents where raising a family CB wasn't means tested...

I just saw the panaroma show on this - once you give a benefit, politically you can't take it away again. It made me a bit angry too.

Of course it should be means tested.

Its the young people i feel sorry for, paying a fortune in rent and never getting on the housing ladder. That's what we should be looking at, not giving well off older people money they dont need.

I did exactly the same. It went to the foodbank. The threshold was too low, maybe it should have been at the same point as the tax personal allowance.

The majority of pensioners I know do worry about fuel bills, they're at home most of the time and so need to heat their homes for longer than working people who are out of the house 9 hours a day.

Even those who can manage without it or are very wealthy and definitely don't need it still spend it on something whether it's towards a cruise as someone mentioned or christmas presents or meals out so it ends up back in the economy supporting businesses.

I agree to a certain extent. The reliance on the benefits state has got completely out of hand and should be reserved for those in real need. We need to find a way to hold people accountable for their own financial situation - this applies to those of working age and retired.
We are prioritising the wrong things. Education for instance is in an absolute mess. Under funded to a criminal degree and (from the conversation I had with our head teacher this am) schools/academies a
couple of years away from financial implosion. We need to prioritise educating the children that will be our future rather than protecting the triple lock. But successive governments focus on chasing votes.
We’re in a mess - I wish someone would come up with some radical ideas for real change.

The cut off was far too low. They should have said pensioners who get less than £20k to live off each year.

I with pensioners but the thin fb I feel would stop excusing fenake pensioners from accessing their full pencsiob would be a rabe of feminist subjects that prevent women from accessing services: full child benefit as a result if abusuve court processes, full access to employment as a result of birth injuries, lack of access to basic toilets (again due to birth injuries - women’s public toilet provisions is dire), access to proper health due to birth injuries (thd nHS Actuallg provides disclaimers to most info bevause of the sheer lack of access to peer reviewed studies surrounding injury due to reproductive labour)

and on and on and on.

Fair point on the admin.

But I also know lots of comfortable pensioners who will admit they don’t need WFA but felt aggrieved when it was taken away. They are ordinary working class boomers.

But yes it probably costs more to administrate means testing

also if pensioners made to apply then the ones who don’t quite have all their faculties will slip through the net and possibly freeze to death

We used to send ours to a favourite charity so DHs went to the salvation army and mine to a children's charity. To be honest we still sent the money even though it wasnt WFA money this time. I wonder if any charities saw an effect?

I agree if should be means tested

Setting up a means-testing operation would cost way more than it would save.

You’re lucky to know so many well off pensioners. I know many that aren’t so fortunate. I’d far rather we paid the allowance universally than leaving a lot of pensioners unable to heat even one room.

I can't see why it couldn't be added to the tax code of pensioners - so effectively an age-related tax free allowance, which would help all pensioners above pension credit level but below higher rate taxation - they are the ones turning the heating off as they've not got the savings but cannot claim pension credit.

YANBU. The average pensioner household has the same income as the average working household but with no housing or childcare costs. And that is just income, not wealth where they are massively better off on average than the rest of the population.

It is madness to take money from young families to give to their better off parents.

I'm a pensioner, I'm actually sick of listening to TV presenters going on about it. If I hear anymore about how vulnerable I am I might do something drastic.

Perhaps it should be means tested to the same income level as CB.
peiple who earn say £49k don’t shout from the rooftops that they don’t need CB from what I hear!

There’s only ever shy point in means testing if it saves money. This is why they opted for such a low threshold. If they opted for the higher rate tax bracket it would cost more to work out who not to pay it to than they would save.

But I dare say you will know people who could afford to pay a lot more tax. It's just the same thing. As for the person who said they'd give it back to the treasury, why don't you just pay more tax now on top of what you pay? Just send them a cheque, they are not going to reject it.

Yes. The oldest have had longest to provide for themselves, are least likely to have dependents, and as a group are not poor.

It’s not a complete U-turn. The cutoff is being raise by an unspecified amount, which is good because Kat winter a pensioner on £12k a year got no WFA.

Wonder how many time cruises will get a mention.

And yet people are buying into the crazy Reform promises.

I actually agree with Reform on a couple of things yet there's not a cat's chance in hell I'd vote for them and their magic money tree school of economics. It's what people want to hear though, and when they car crash the economy, it'll be someone else's fault of course. They couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.