WTF? £600 winter fuel allowance for all pensioners!

[user1497207191]

No wonder the country has no money and the deficit/debt is getting bigger.

MIL just phoned up saying she'd got a letter telling her £600 was on the way to her and asking why, when she doesn't need it?

Just why??? She's not claiming means tested benefits. Her state and her husband's occupational pension are already far more than she needs to live on, meaning she saves a few hundred pounds a month into ISAs (which already stand at over £100k). Owns her own house, so no rent/mortgage.

Why the hell can't this money be directed at those who actually need it or more worthy causes? It's insane to keep throwing money at people who don't need it.

She doesn't need it, she doesn't want it. She wouldn't miss it if it wasn't paid to her.

If they can means test the child benefit and claw it back from those earning over £50k, why can't they come up with a way of ensuring winter fuel allowance is only paid to those who may need it? Why not only paid to those pensioners claiming pension credits, or rent allowance, or whatever?

A lot of you on here just can't see something go by you
Who is more deserving of this money? You perchance?
So bitter and twisted (and that's before you get old)

It is a bit mental to be giving free money to people who truly don't need it when there's families struggling to feed their children.

Having children is a choice, getting old is not
The entitlement is astonishing

Part of it is because pensioners need to keep their homes warmer as old age makes you more susceptible to hypothermia. So it’s more about offsetting the extra cost of being old, sort of like PIP is a non means tested disability benefit meant to offset the extra costs of having disabilities.

Once again, that's not what (the majority) are saying.

People who need help should, of course, get help.

But when you have a benefit going unconditionally to a group of people you end up with literal millionaires getting money they do not need.

Better that pensioners on the breadline get £800 rather than £600 and Richard Branson gets nothing, don't you think? Even if the total given out is then reduced due to this unspecified cost of means testing.

It’s done by the same computer payroll system that pays the State Pension. Someone has to activate the bit of code that triggers the payment. Writing a new bit of code that exclude some from payment would cost more. And require extra staff to deal with appeals.

Not sure that would happen as the pensioners on the breadline far outnumber the 1% of pensioners who are billionaires…

I never thought I would but I am considering retiring somewhere else, the level of hate for older people and the way this country seems to be degenerating into a right wing moral vacuum are too much.

I didn't realise that the minute you became a pensioner you had to vote Conservative. Most pensioners i know vote Green or Liberal.

Maybe it should be advertised more that if you don't need the payment you can cancel it

Was about to type this exact sentence

Better that pensioners on the breadline get £800 rather than £600 and Richard Branson gets nothing, don't you think? Even if the total given out is then reduced due to this unspecified cost of means testing. There’s no guarantee that there’d be enough left after cost of means testing for the pensioners on the breadline to get £600 let alone £800.

£600 is peanuts compared with what the average billionaire is failing to give the State by astute use of tax loopholes.

Will the Labour Party get rid of it, I thought they introduced it

Mumsnet hates the tories so are only using it as a backhanded elderly bashing insult

I tend towards tory. My elderly parents are and have been labour all their life and I don't see them changing.
Actually quite a few of my friends are similar. Seems common in professionals from working class backgrounds.

Agreed.

Yes, it’s cheaper to make this benefit universal rather than means testing it. Recipients are at liberty to donate the cash to a charity if they don’t need it and feel it would be better directed elsewhere.

They might possibly give it to the unemployed and those with children too.
Folks on this thread would then stop complaining about it being a waste of money if it is them getting it.

It’s ridiculous. We have family members in their 70s with huge pensions, additional rental properties etc and they receive this payment whether or not they want it (in addition to free prescriptions, travel etc.) and many of their friends are in similar positions. Such a waste of public money.

They should give it to everyone on PIP and/or ESA or UC with disability element as the majority of disabled people also have higher energy needs to stay warm/run medical equipment at home.

Only if you were born before September 1943 , otherwise it's less .
Cost of living payment has been added last year and this , it was about £250 for a single person before then .

You have to be over 80 to get £600

I've just done some really crude googling.
There are about 3 million people over 80.
There are about 2 million 'older households' (I didn't look up what that meant) who are unable to meet their essential spending.

If you take into account that many of the households in hardship would be missed if they had to apply for the fuel allowance or submit evidence, or do it all online, the current way ensures that the most vulnerable are protected.

Those who don't need it are welcome to redistribute it.

Having children is what all animam species do as the mainstay of existence.

It's no more a choice or not a choice than getting old is or isn't a choice: "choice" is entirely irrelevant here. Being born, having offspring, growing old are all part of life.

I don’t hate any!

Im just saying a 61 yo has a very different life experience to a, say, 75 yo who has had more “classic” boomer experience. In particular re the payment of women’s pensions - my mother who is 75 had her state pension at 60, whereas a currently 61 yo won’t have had that.

Not hate, just saying there’s a difference.

I don’t agree with putting people in boxes myself, but equally sometimes it’s a shorthand for certain esp economic and social experiences.

Agree with you. Yes some old people do need it but not all.

My nana and grandpa have it and will happily admit they don’t need it. I do think it should be means tested.

There's a very obvious solution to that, isn't there? Get out and vote! Use your postal vote if necessary. I have no time at all for people who moan about political decisions and didn't make the effort to vote.

So it looks like the OP is incorrect and all pensioners don't get £600.

They are free to give it back.
Free to not take the state pension aswell if they want.
We re all free to donate excess money to charities aswell if we have it.