To resent the U-turn on winter fuel allowance?

OP you are definitely living in a bubble! Not all pensioners are comfortably off - do you know what the threshold for Pension Credit is? About £3 under the State Pension. There are pensioners out there who have to make the choice between heating and eating. Sweeping generalisations are pointless.

Or....

They could have just increased the pension by that amount (or more), thereby making it taxable, ensuring those who have low incomes get every penny of it, and those on high incomes get about half of it.

Yes - you still have the issue of about £100/year going to people who don't need it - but that's a lot cheaper than doing the means-testing, and the appeals process, and all the other stuff that government does so expensively. And you can also retire the IT system that handles WF payments, saving another chunk of money.

16 pages, and still nobody has said what they mean by 'needing it'.

I'm gonna guess you haven't "taped a TV program" or saved anything to a floppy disk for the same amount of time.

Strange how phrases continue on beyond their strict definition, or items become "the save icon" on buttons when most people don't even understand the significance.

Because it’s still going to be means tested. The threshold is moving.

I have heard a lot of older people saying they don't need it. The means testing would cost a fortune apparently so why don't they set up some sort of fund, whereby those that don't need it can donate directly into it, and it can be used for those elderly people who are really struggling .

I definitely agree with you, totally think lower income pensioners should get it but rest no way. They are more comfortably off than a lot of young families living in poverty and those families don’t get a fuel allowance. Like other posters have also said our generation will be unlikely to get a state pension never mind a winter fuel allowance!

The pensioners I know are wealthy too. Seems madness to just issue it to all. Some many of that generation have made considerable amounts on property etc yet still complain. Many did support Kier in stopping it, but he has waned under pressure

Like tax credits which have now morphed into UC. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

They must be quietly cursing Gordon Brown. Easy to give, harder to take away.

Six? Blimey, that’s going some!

My children have got six sets of grandparents
All of which did not need the winter fuel allowance and spent it on crap

I agree. We need to lose this "entitlement" mentality. All financial benefits should be based on NEED only, whether disability benefits, state pension, bus passes, etc. Those with high incomes/high assets should be means tested out of all state benefits. Just initially set the threshold pretty high, say £100k of income or £1m of assets to prevent the sad faces in the Daily Mail! Don't change the limit over time, so "fiscal drag" will effectively reduce the "real" thresholds over the years.

For most types of tax, HMRC don't accept cheques anymore anyway!

All benefits should be means tested.All of them, including Child Benefit.

Meanwhile, if your people don't need it, they can refuse it. I know people used to do that. Plenty of people I worked with, living in London, two or more children, refused CB because they could manage (just about) without it. Don't see a lot of that going on either.

Everyone is out for as much as they can get these days.

Write a cheque to HMRC.

I know I’m ancient but I haven’t written a cheque for about 20 years!

3 million people were "shafted" by being excluded from the support schemes.

Why do so many people feel they can only do the "good thing" they want to if there's a system in place so that others also do it?

From you, that wouldn't donate the WFP without a scheme in place, to the Patriotic Millionaires who keep going on about how they should be taxed more.

It comes across as virtue signalling - if it's the right thing to do, just do it - regardless of whether others do it.
Write a cheque to HMRC. Whether you tell anyone about it, that's your business.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government

On the wider topic, I find it interesting how people can always cast about and find other people who have "too much money", or "more money than they need" - when realistically nobody really can see the truth of others finances.

Personally I've never had it. I'm lucky enough not to need it. Others are not so fortunate. I do find it abhorrent though that anyone on benefits can have more money than someone who "already earns enough" to be ineligible.

How can you be shafted by covid? Every man and his dog were affected, in any case.

What U turn? All Reeves has said is that eligibility is to be widened, it’s still going to be means tested.

I think the u-turn is ridiculous too. It's time to prioritise the young and stop giving the elderly everything.

The young were shafted by covid and Brexit, and now they've got to pay for well off pensioners' heating again. If you get pension credit, you get the extra money so the very poor pensioners still get it.

You have no idea, do you? I entered the workplace in the 60s. No decent work pensions in those days, not for women. And as I already told you, as a single mother who didn't get a farthing off her ex (he was abusive, there were no systems in place then to protect me and my son) I didn't have the finances for the luxury of a pension.

In fact, like most women, I'm pretty capable and did quite well self-employed, so I do have a financial cushion - but I prefer to work to keep a safety net in place. Tbh, I probably would even if I didn't need that. I enjoy what I do.

But I know of two women of my age who are doing just that mad thing - living off the state pension, because their lives didn't give them any other option.

No she didn’t. Try reading:

I now have my state pension and a small work pension

Having said that it’s all some people, particularly women, have not through madness but because of a lifetime of low pay. Do you think people choose poverty?

You've no idea, have you?

So you expected to be able to live off the state pension alone when you retired? Madness.