To wonder why child benefit is now means tested but winter fuel payments aren't.

[ImagineJL]

I can see the argument for reducing and removing child benefit for high earners (despite the fact that I am losing money myself), but why not apply the same principle to winter fuel payments? A colleague of mine is a hospital consultant, earning over 100k a year, so has just lost all his child benefit. But he still gets his winter fuel payment.

It seems a bit strange.

The pulling up of the drawbridge is spot on.

......the good old squeezed middle!!!!!!

Agree with you Polkadot, my DH spends nearly as much on commuting as we do on the rent. It is ridiculous. Am not looking forward to dcs starting secondary school, as that will be more bus fares, oh and no CB!

ihategeorgeosborne - since it's getting on, I've had some and the thread appears to be dying, I can confess my hideous secret: I'm actually a member of the Lib Dems.

And I've just had an email off the party saying, '...when it comes to balancing the books, the Liberal Democrats have different instincts to most Conservatives.
Let?s be clear, there will be some difficult decisions in tomorrow?s statement. That would be the case no matter which party was running the country right now."

...that doesn't sound good, does it

Although the Indie this week said the Lib Dems have blocked the no-HB-for-under-25s idea, which was appalling, so fingers crossed on that one.

Go back three years or so on MN and see the threads on which women on average or less earnings talked about what they were spending on beauty treatments, clothes, hen nights and weddings and honeymoons. Why, in 30 or 40 years' time or so, should they get the fuel allowance because they spent on fripperies while their more prudent contemporaries saved?

I too have just finished the remains of a bottle of wine from the weekend and have been searching round for more to no avail. I have a friend who's a member of the conservatives can't speak to him at the moment.

Yes, I've been reading a bit about what might happen tomorrow. Apparently, tax relief on pensions will be reduced to 30k a year. I think I can say I'm safe on that one!! Not sure about the rest. Benefits may be frozen for two years I think from what I've read. I have to say that I do agree with the lib dems on the property tax or higher council tax bands, but it won't happen. We'll have to wait and see. I know we will be worse off though

Sorry, got a bit too much strikethrough there! Must be the wine!!

'Which is the basis upon which the OP suggested removing WFA. I think that's a good thing about both benefits. '

No, it isn't. It's about two universal benefits. Well, formerly universal benefits.

DLA is not and never has been a universal benefit. It's a fallacy to try to trot that out in a debate or discussion about two universal benefits.

I never said it was a universal benefit. I said it was a non means tested benefit.

Gosh. Lots of vitriol towards 'baby boomers' on here. Perhaps some of the more negative posters might like to reflect on the fact that those born in the early sixties who delayed child-bearing until their late thirties or so may well have teenage children and be struggling to exactly the same extent as many younger families, particularly those who couldn't afford to buy property.

The 'older generation all had it so easy' argument is a little simplistic. For every wealthy OAP there are probably more who are living on very small incomes.

But just for the record, I don't agree with WFP being given to wealthy pensioners. Have never quite understood that...

My mate is 62. I don't consider it old.

My father is 77. He says, 'At last, I'm old!'

But you know, it's funny, because he was obviously born at the tail end of the Great Depression, to immigrant parents, and very poor indeed. He worked all his life, didn't retire until he was 68 (he's in the US, it's well-accepted there and the retirement age was raised before the UK and continues to be). He totally gets, how it is now. He said he'd not be young again for anything. And disapproves of non means-tested benefits entirely.

He speaks of it often. A well a ways away for water, 4 children and parents in one room, everyone working for an early age (his first paid job was when he was 7, on a milk float, jumping off to collect the empty bottles and putting the full ones onto the porch. His brother, who was nearly 3-years-older, was delivering coal by then), a father working away, a mother who'd already lost other children with a wood stove and taking in washing and ironing and maiding on Sundays. And he says, 'How is this a good thing to aspire to? How do people think we have to go back there for people to be considered poor?'

Because after that he worked all over the world and he doesn't seem a damn thing good about that kind of poverty, or thinking it's a good source of comparison.

Ever lived in a place like that?

I have. It is shit. People will slit your throat, kidnap you, put you on a guiolltine.

It does not work to proclaim that everyone who is poverty, average earnings, not rich is so because they chose to be. Hello? We've already tried that. Anyone to want to a body count as a result of that?

As he said, it's because I had the opportunity to be so! I lived in a society that allowed that. Sure, he had drive. He grew up with young men who didn't have his mother or father. He never for once denigrated them or their choices. As he said, 'My mother fed children whose mothers worked at night.'

Others did not and do not.

I think Expats testimony should serve as a reminder of how lucky we actually are.
We live in a country where in the case of unemployment, basic needs are met by government benefits. We live in a country where our health needs and those of our children will met without having to prove you are medically insured.
Education is a right, and not a privilege in the UK. Our kids don't have to walk miles for lessons, or have to carry water pots for the whole family before they start school.
For those who cry 'it's not fair' - who ever said life would be? Before you complain that someone else is getting something you don't think is right, take a step back and count all you have got.

I do think that housing has gone all to cock though price wise.

For buying & renting.

My parents bought-but only using Dad´s income-as it was then.

That said, my FIL wouldn´t have got a mortgage if MIL hadn´t worked & saved & got a whack of a deposit to put down (they´re late 70s).

And that was on a tiny 2 bed bungalow.

So home ownership hasn´t always been a given for that generation.

Although now two full timers struggle to get a mortgage so it is all skewed.

We'll get a raft of cuts today, but pensioners will keep that WFA no matter if they need it or not.

Ohlimp but for how much longer?

We can no longer afford to keep paying for what you have listed.The younger generation also need to start planning for their retirement but we're not being given any help to do that.

You now need 2 full time workers to get a tiny shoebox of a house if you're lucky,2 X commuting bills,most whose dc won't get max loans will need to help with living expenses if their dc go to uni,most will need to either house their grown up dc or help towards them getting a house to rent let alone anything else.Food and bills are rocketing and are far harder to pay when you are supporting children instead of 2 M&S ready meals.

We won't be getting a state pension and will probably have to pay towards medical bills by the time the Tories have finished carving up the NHS.It is nigh on impossible for many families to find surplus money to pay into a private pension yet we're all expected to carry on chucking money away on cruises and M&S food for the wealthy baby boomers.Jeremy Paxman wrote a very interesting article on the sense of entitlement the babyboomers feel and he's got it spot on.

All in it together my arse.

It's the utter lack of fairness or thought for the younger generation that shocks me and will ensure I never ever vote Tory or lib dem in the future.They simply don't care about fairness or our future and I find it very scary.Not that keen on voting labour but I will purely on the fairness factor alone,the thought of 4 more years of complete utter unfairness and consideration only of Tory voters I find utterly terrifying.

Link to Jeremy Paxman article. V interesting reading.

I think that until house prices come down substantially and only then will ordinary folk get a better deal. Who exactly are those high house prices helping. I'll be interested to see what's in the budget.

Ohlimp - I agree with you .... up to a point. Clearly the fact that UK children enjoy free education, and have access to clean running water makes us far luckier than many in the world - no-one would dispute that. However, that does NOT mean that we should therefore "count our blessings", put up and shut up and ignore stuff happening in the UK which does feel unfair. If the masses never objected, never protested at injustice then where does that leave us ? ..... basically with a very small minority of those in power stomping all over the rest of us (including many vulnerable people unable to protest themselves) for their own political and personal gain.

Of course life isn't fair - never has been, never will be. It's not fair when decent people lose their jobs through no fault of their own, or when they get cancer, or when their children are born with a disability which affects their quality of life, or when someone has a life changing accident, or when the nicest of people have to endure personal tragedy etc etc etc. But I personally feel that that sort of unfairness is, very sadly, usually unavoidable and no-one's fault as such - just terribly bad luck. This whole WFA issue isn't something that has just happened spontaneously of its own accord - it's deliberate policy. It doesn't have to remain as it is in the same way that many other forms of unfairness quite literally can't be tackled - the powers that be, could, if they were so inclined, actually do something about it ... and their current refusal to do so is at complete odds with their "all in it together" stance, and their repeated lectures about us "all" having to bear the cost of repairing the economy by cutting the benefits bill as much as possible. I find it quite sickening that many who've benefitted from comfortable homes while they raised their families (because they could afford to buy relatively easily (compared to now)) and who could now, in theory, downsize and bank 100s of 1000s just like that because they've also benefitted from huge property rises, and who've also got final salary pensions are still handed any sum of money they don't actually need while millions of others are in desperate need. I don't doubt for a second that means testing, and then removing, as appropriate the WFA would solve the wider problems, but it would be something as well as being seen to be as fair as possible.

I refuse to shut up about this - or any other injustice - just because the UK is still a better place to live than various other countries. That is a separate issue and whilst I'm very thankful to live in a 1st world country, that does not mean I should meekly roll over and let myself (and worse, people who are in greater need than me) be shat all over by blinkered and privileged knobs who appear to have no idea of what life is really like for most.

Pensioners vote.

Exactly Cats.

I find the bonkers strategy of cutting of CB for families with just one earner on 50K but leaving it for those on dual income of 100K with zero explanation,fairness or logic scary to be frank.It's a ludicrous policy made even more ludicrous by the fact they don't even touch WFA,bus passes etc at all.

The blatant protection of Tory voters at the cost of all fairness or logic would be funny if it wasn't so scary.Thin end of the wedge imvho. Who knows what fairness or logic they'll turn a blind eye to if they get another 4 years.

If we are talking about fairness, then I think is exactly the fact that everyone over a certain age gets it that makes it fair.

What's unfair is deciding that people who have saved for their future have something taken away from them when people who haven't get given it with no problem.

"saved for their future"you mean been lucky enough to have jobs with extremely generous pension plans the like of which our generation will never see.My fil didn't scrimp and save he was just fortunate enough to have a final salary pension which his sil with a very menial office job didn't have.Said sil scrimped and saved a waaaaay more than fil,needs and deserves WFA.

Soooo those of us working all hours at the moment,trying to raise children with very little left over who will never have decent pensions through no fault of our own will be less deserving than todays wealthy pensioners.I think not.