Winter fuel payments for pensioners scrapped

[MidnightPatrol]

Unless they are in receipt of pension credit or other benefits.

I suspect this will be the first of many benefits which will be restricted as part of cost-cutting measures.

What else might we see / should we see?

Less and less people will be eligible for pension credit over time.

People seem to be equating:
worked all my life = state pension
didn't work = pension credits
But it's not that simple.

It's not just "dole bums" who didn't work. It's one of those leftover situations from when lots of ordinary women in average-income families didn't work so much after children or worked part-time and didn't earn enough to pay NI. Those people didn't qualify for full state pension either, so get pension credit.

Anyone claiming various welfare benefits might not be paying national insurance contributions but they're credited with them as if they had paid. So gradually, as the only people not working become the sick or disabled or carers etc (or the rich, but they're irrelevant here because they don't need WFA) because ordinary-income families need two working parents now to have any quality of life, most people will end up having the full state pension due to their NI credits, if not their NI contributions itself. It'll only be those not working and also living with a working partner, so unable to claim anything much, who'll be on pension credits.

@archibaldpeaches you can't limit means-tested benefits to those who've previously paid in, because where does that leave people too sick or disabled to have ever been able to work? Unless you think they should all be culled upon reaching adulthood (or at birth?). Going to assume your post was ill thought out and you're not actually in favour of eugenics.

To the poster who's 60+ and can't find work or claim UC ( @happyinherts ? Sorry if it's not you). Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but have you registered with a pile of employment agencies for temporary work? Employers are less likely to worry about you being "old and past it" (or whatever reason they're not employing you) when they just need to get a bum on a seat and can easily fire you if you turn out to be useless. The agencies want their cut, so will actively seek out work on your behalf.

Pensioners are going to become the punching bag of Labour.

But you were young they say it's the elderly that die in the cold. Both my grandparents had coal fires, one a range granny did all the cooking on. They'd live in that room in the winter. Only dashing upstairs to bed with hot water bottles.

How many pensioners still have open fires, even gas in some cases.

They've threatened power outages on the grid in the winter because the system is at breaking point.

I remember my mother putting us all in the dining room off the kitchen in the day with paraffin heaters, we all slept in there at night. Our bathroom froze so no bath, sink or loo sometimes.

Deaths may well increase again.

Go Labour! Pensioners today, single mothers tomorrow- maybe the disabled by the weekend!

I blame the Tories.

Rachel Reeves has given the junior doctors a 22.3% pay increase giving them a starting salary of just shy of £40,00 to avert further strikes.

Rachel Reeves has removed the £200 Winter Fuel Payment from pensioners whose total annual income exceeds £10,800.

Pensioners do not work, they cannot go on strike.

Easy target.

Who uses the doctors the most?

Do you have any idea how much work and responsibility being a doctor actually involves? They deserve to be very well paid.
As do teachers and emergency services.

And police, are you expected to put yourself between a headcase with a knife and the public during your working day?

If pensioners haven't saved for their retirement then they need to budget, or get family help, like everyone else has to do.

State pension has never been advertised to fund cruises.

It's not just pensioners, everyone is going to have to pay more to get things back to being functional.

I bet many pensioners would rather forfeit the heating allowance to get a hip operation a year, 2 years earlier. Or not have to wait half a day for an ambulance.

Look at the bigger picture.

And i bet once the heating payment taken away no party whatever their colour will being it back.

We're supposed to die I think.

Without doctors pensioners will have much more to worry about than being cold.

Rachel Reeves has given the junior doctors a 22.3% pay increase to avert further strikes.

@UndergroundSquirrel what pay increase would you have given?

I never mentioned disabled or people that can’t work. No issues there at all, they deserve all the help they can get and quite possible should be helped more. There are people thought that can indeed work but don’t as they would be worse off and I did actually state it’s the government to blame that situation. Not everyone that gets benefits is unable to work.

Thank you so much for listening. Yes, it was me. I have registered with recruiters but I only seem to get care work offered me and I can't drive. I don't seem to be qualified or suitable for other work. I don't get responses. I did have my own business before Covid and AI has wiped that out too.

And these deaths will still be prevented, because the ones who need the allowance will get it, and the ones who are better off financially won't. THEY will be able to afford the energy bills without the handout. Do try to keep up!

Isn’t it more that people of my generation - and younger - couldn’t be arsed to get out and vote against it that caused the result? I’m more pissed off about their lack of engagement tbh than being angry at those who did bother to vote in what they presumably thought were their own interests.

Fair to take it from people with an income of £218 per week to live on?

She has also said that the hospitals earmarked for rebuilding will be scrutinised and many of those will now receive no funding.

Without hospitals those doctors will have no place of work.

What UC are people on that "can work but don't" What group are they in?

Well they've refused it the unions said. They want 35%

Well the Tories would have let you die.

I'm 68. In November '22, I started having some spells of lightheadedness. My GP did a brief ECG and referred me to cardiology at my local hospital. My first appointment is next week. 20 months later.

So yes, I'd like there to be more doctors, and I'd like the existing ones to be paid enough to stay in their jobs, please.

There will be a lot of pensioners who need it but don’t get it - the ones just above the pension credit cut-off.

I’m not against means-testing it. But the cut-off is far too low. And I think financial cliff-edges are fundamentally unfair, regardless of what they’re for.

There will be a lot of pensioners on low incomes who won’t get it. Those on £218 per week won’t get it. Do try to keep up!

Totally agree - ‘treat’ on my wedding day was that my dad would empty the tin bath for me! A very different era - yes there are some on here who feel very entitled

Pensioners are considered ‘too wealthy’ for the Winter Fuel Payment now if they have a total annual income exceeding £10,800 - even if only by £1.

Perhaps the government should remove Child Benefit from families whose income exceeds £10,800? The ones who need the allowance will get it, and the ones who are better off financially won't. THEY will be able to afford the food and clothing bills for their kids without the handout.

i think this is fine - there are lots of wealthy pensioners who don’t need this. However, there needs to be a drive to ensure everyone who is eligible and in need of this payment gets it. You see every year pensioners struggling, scared to use their heating. What will be done to identify those on a low income who are entitled to pension credit and other benefits but are not currently receiving it?

Where we live the Spire have built a brand new small hospital 45 minutes away and a huge clinic for consultancy and minor ops 20 minutes away. Our health trust are using both.

Labour doing the levelling. All poor and uneducated.