Genuine question re pensioner fuel payment cut

[Katypp]

Just this: How would the Labour supporters react if three weeks into a new Conservative Government, the chancellor cut the winter fuel payment to any pensioner with an income of more than £11k?
Would you think it was a reasonable thing to do or would it be considered cruel because it was the Tories implementing it, not Labour?
I would imagine Angela Raynor, Yvette Cooper and Wes Streeting would have been very vocal and worried about it.
Would the public finances argument wash if it was a Tory Government? It didn't when Cameron came into power.
What's different?

Bus passes are a benefit to society though not just to OAPs. They're meant to help persuade elderly to give up their cars.

I think a lot of people are just spiteful and if it doesn’t directly affect them they don’t give a fuck
i think Rachel is out of touch about fuel cost to run a home as she claims her back through expenses

lol DF is 88 and still driving. his GP surgery is out of town and he uses the car to go there and make an appointment when the surgery does not answer the phone or there are 30 ppl in the queue in front of him. We need a lot more improvements to services if you want the elderly to give up their cars. DF also has prostate cancer so hes not going to struggle on buses

It’s all done online by local authorities, it’s part of someone’s existing job.

67 is way too early for this though. I could get behind making it free from 75 or so (to give people time to adapt and get used to bus travel before it becomes necessary), but the vast majority of people in their late 60s can still drive just fine.

Realistically, however, just flinging free bus travel at people is not enough to deal with the issue of elderly drivers (unless self driving cars become fully rolled-out earlier than we currently anticipate). The main issues are that a) some people strongly associate driving with independence and simply won’t give it up, no matter how free the bus is, and b) the UK is full of areas that are currently poorly set up for public transport; the services themselves are poor and the populations they are serving are too low-density for public transport to ever be a satisfactory solution.

Ideally, we should be building lots of nice airy retirement-friendly flats (balconies, shared gardens, all that kind of stuff) in mid-town locations at high enough densities to ensure that people are within walking/scooting distance of shops, services and public transport stops. However, this will mean tackling leasehold issues; currently retirement flats are often considered a bad bet in the UK as leasehold laws do not govern things like management fees strictly enough. Reforming leasehold to ensure that management fees are fair, reasonable and transparent (and other safeguards) is important.

Unless the UK can make flat living a more desirable option, it’s hard to know how this issue is going to be solved unless self-driving cars become a full solution very soon. Older people need stair-free homes, and bungalow estates require huge amounts of land per person and typically result in people living at very low densities on the fringes of cities, where public transport is just never going to work well enough to be a decent solution. Plus, the UK is generally very reluctant to build on greenfield sites more than necessary; I can’t see this country being OK with concreting over endless meadows to build low-density bungalow estates.

Yes, they do.

Bus services cost money - loads and loads of money - to run. To make them viable, you should be getting loads of money back from fares.

If services end up being largely a free taxi for the elderly, I get that that’s “nice,” but it means bus services become a huge financial drain on local governments.

Long-term, free bus travel also tends to distort public transport provision, resulting in a lot more services being offered during the off-peak times, which stymies any attempts to get commuters to use buses and actually make a serious dent in car usage. It also distorts public transport provision in favor of buses rather than metro or trams, which are the “serious” options if the UK actually wants to shift its cities away from cars and towards PT.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jul/01/councils-in-england-hit-by-unsustainable-450m-bill-for-free-bus-passes

Doesn't everyone only pay £2 for the buses anyway, that must cost a fortune, DH and I used the buses on holiday and he only paid £2 for quite a long journey.

My god, if it isn't bad enough that people think that taking away fuel allowance from elderly people who have to live on less than 12k a year is ok, now people think they shouldn't be allowed to drive cars either.

Not every driver over state pension age drives dangerously. Some do, just as some under state pension age drive dangerously.

The ageism on Mumsnet is awful. If you're lucky you too will be old one day.

With the cost of driving these days I doubt many on 12k would be able to afford to run a car.

Exactly, and yet some on here would be quite happy to take away bus passes for pensioners as well and the £10 Christmas bonus, looking at you @blossomtoes. Not sure if she includes people on PIP who get the extra £10 as well, she didn't answer that yesterday.

It isn't - this winter my choice will be eat or heat.

I haven’t advocated taking away bus passes at all. They’re used by people who need them and the only real cost is for journeys taken. I think bus passes are a good thing, especially for people lucky enough to live somewhere a bus service actually exists. More than happy to see pensioners’ “Christmas bonus” go and save £110 million, I didn’t even know PIP claimants got it.

Maybe stop making stuff up about other posters @2dogsandabudgie?

60 is a London thing and isn't funded by central government. It may be going anyway as Transport for London don't have much money anymore.

If your MIL rarely if ever uses her bus pass then it's not costing anything much apart from the cost of printing it and posting it out to her. The main cost of a bus pass is the lost fares, which aren't lost if people aren't making free journeys they would otherwise have paid for.

There is no need for renewal for 5 years - or if you move to a differant LA.

To means test it would cost a lot and is unnecessary. It is not given automatically.

Yes, it is lined up with pension age outside London

So now that you do know people on PIP get the £10 bonus at Christmas are you happy for it to be taken away from them too?

No apology for being wrong @2dogsandabudgie?

Quite honestly tossing people a tenner is pretty patronising whether it’s based on age or health status.

However, I think the cut-off point is too low.

This is the part I 100% agree with. I'm not sure where it should be, but that is a disgracefully low cut off.

Maybe the cut off should be at the level of the personal allowance? It’s logical.

I honestly think that is also too low, although I do see the logic in it.
Poor show by the government, and I hope the opposition are giving them hell for it.

I apologise for the bus pass comment.

If you're on the breadline that extra £10 would be gratefully received. Could mean the difference between eating and not eating for some.

How do you feel about the £7 million of tax payers' money that it costs to subsidise the canteen at Westminster? Could heat a lot of elderly people's homes with that money.

Anecdote: two of my Facebook friends (acquaintances, in fact) who posted a blizzard of messages in favour of Labour before the election have now posted a link to a petition against axing WFP headlined "The Government plans to axe the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners" and "DON’T SCRAP WINTER FUEL ALLOWANCE FOR MILLIONS OF STRUGGLING PENSIONERS".

In fairness to them they weren't to know that's what Labour would do. I think many are shocked that the first thing Labour have done is target a vulnerable group after everything they said about the Tories.

Obviously we shouldn’t be subsidising meals at Westminster. Any more whataboutery?