Can’t just be me who is sick of the moaning about the private school VAT and winter fuel payments

[TruthorDie]

The moaning about them seems to be never ending. So tone death and indulgent on both counts. Not sure which is worse. A friends mum was ranting on social media earlier about winter fuel payments being stopped and how “worried about being cold” she was. Bad news is Lynn you haven’t needed to work since 1989, married to an oil exec and have had lots of the good life. I’m sure all of your Florida holidays keep you warm enough!

Bright children can get on anywhere, my siblings and l went to a comprehensive. We all have a couple of degrees, one of us has a PhD so it didn’t hold us back too much in life. Before anyone comes at it from the neurodiversity angle then l am and l wouldn’t be surprised if my younger sibling isn’t

You could argue that the cruise lady has been very sensible - she’s taken the money in her property and enjoyed her retirement with it, and now with not a penny to her name the tax payer will fund her care in old age. Who’s the daft one, her or the people that fund themselves?

Maybe some people don't think that parents who choose to breed should get money from the government!

Apologies for being forensic - it’s all those SENCO years applying for EHCPs. I have never had one go to tribunal. I have always worked in the most deprived and underfunded boroughs in England. I’m well aware the system is broken - it’s why I left. I still have to question why the SEN system is broken after 14 years of Conservative government and how Labour is going to make it worse.

I have no issue with children being funded for specialist schools if mainstream can’t meet their needs.

I did my six years’ postgraduate SEN qualifications whilst working full time as a single parent. Sometimes I wonder why I did ten years at university to leave my career at 50, but then I remember I burned out from trying to work within a broken system that became more and more broken in recent years, and that I helped vulnerable children and their parents for as long as I could.

He needs to get it sorted pronto because he definitely shouldn’t be paying tax on an income under the personal allowance threshold. I imagine he has income he’s hiding from you.

Hopefully he’s a secret millionaire and just a miser.

I know this is off topic, but why are there so many? I do't doubt that kids need help, I don't doubt that the covid lockdowns had a massive impact on them, but at the same time, there seems (to this niave person) to have been a massive increase in the last 10 years of kids being seen as SEN. I have family and friends with SEN kids, but although we can see the kids are affected, there doesn't seem rhyme or reason why some kids struggle and are eventually diagnosed and some kids just fly through school and some kids struggle what looks identicallly but are not diagnosed as autistic or the other conditions which fall under the banner.

The article said a 50% increase in ten years of claims for disability benefits for children I think if I remember correctly. Sorry but this is massive and completely unsustainable in the longer term. not just the costs of the actual disability benefits, but the SENCO's , all the extra Universal Credit that is paid through disabled child element etc. It's going to need to be addressed before long. The article raised concerns that disabled young people are falling off a cliff edge with benefits once the DLA stops as many are not then eligible for adult disability benefits.

Iagree with you in the main. It shouldn't have always been means tested when it existed for all. That's why quite a few of the luvvie actors launched on their social accounts that they wanted to opt out, or pay it back... they were accused by many of bragging if you remember.
However there is a part of me which wonders why did the 90 year old move stay in that house. Why did your parents choose a different (well insulated) house?
I'm not at all trying to say "It's their decisions, it's their fault", but at the same time I'd love to know how it can be expected for people to be able to plan how much money they need for the rest of their lives.
Of course being 90 now means retiring in 1994, and having possibly worked since 1954. People were actively told that if they paid their stamps (NI) that they would be taken care of later in life. All those governments from then until now (no matter which party) didn't want to realise the massive problems that they ignored and past onto the next government. They hoped that people would die sooner, and inflation wouldn't occur.

Here is another OP bashing pensioners. The state pension is higher than UC for single people but those people could work and improve their income. Pensioners cannot and having worked and paid tax and NI for 40 or 50 years. Disabled people get more than basic UC. The average single pensioner income is around half of a full time worker on minimum wage.
Child Benefit is paid to households with an income up to £60000. Winter fuel payment should be at the same level. Child Benefit threshold could be lowered but either way it should be equal.
As for tax on private schools, I have no sympathy whatsoever as everyone can access state schools and sending your children private is a privilege most of us cannot consider.

I would say a bigger issue is people living a sedentary lifestyle - poor diet leading to obesity and deseases auch as diabetes and other illnesses associated with being overweight. Children not being taken out but propped in front of an ipad, or gaming as they get older. People not exercising. The amount of people you walk past daily who are overweight is really sad to see.

Bushmillsbabe pension credit kicks in with small amount of savings and small additional income so worth checking if your neighbour does qualify. I think the savings threshold and income should be increased as most pensioners are keen to have some savings for essential household repairs and funeral costs.

However generally many pensioners are doing ok. The argument that "I've worked all my life and paid NI" doesn't really apply since most people take out more than they pay in..if you factor in schooling, free Uni (for older pepple) health, free prescriptions and care costs.

I think what will inevitably happen is that the bar for a condition to be seen as a disability will be raised. Criteria will get much stricter and struggles that are currently seen as requiring of additional financial support will be normalised and support withdrawn. This is how attendance allowance for older adults works in relation to PIP for younger ones. There is no allowance for reduced mobility, because reduced mobility is so common in elderly people is not seen as outside of the norm. If 50% and rising of young people struggle with MH and/or cognitive issues, then that will gradually be seen as the norm too, and only the most severally affected entitled to help.

The “problem” with dla is that it’s a gateway benefit so a lot of things use dla as proof for certain things so people don’t necessarily need the money but want access to certain other things, certain Sen sessions run by various places require dla as proof for entry for example

Yet if you receive PIP mobility before pension age ( even applying just a few weeks before pension age ) you continue to get that until the day you die? I've had a sudden influx of people applying for PIP just a few weeks before turning state pension age and being awarded it. Yet have a major stroke just after you turn pension age and we have to tell people they can't get any help with mobility and have to wait six months before claiming anything. It's bonkers.

Yes, I know. I'm expecting that sooner or later there will be a policy of managed migration of those PIP claimants over pension age onto AA, which will see some fall off the edge of the criteria.

Yes I've thought similar as the current situation is so unfair. Two people with severely compromised mobility and one gets £75 a week extra or a motorbility car and one doesn't. It is one of things we get the most enquiries about on our helpline for older people - everyone wants to know how they qualify for a motorbility car because they can't walk and we have to tell them that because they are state pension age they can't. Then everyone gets shirty about the rules ! then you have some really old people who are still on DLA with higher rate mobility who still have their motorbility cars and these people were awarded DLA years ago ( and they've never been re-assessed in 20 + years ) when the criteria were a lot easier to meet and still have them at age 85 +. No wonder people think the system is unfair?

Absolutely. But I think it will become harder to get. The whole point of non means tested disability benefit is to address any disadvantage caused by the disability, when compared with a non disabled person in those circumstances. (The reason DLA is hard to claim for very young children, as all that age group have high supervision needs, for example) As more and more people report the same difficulties it will be harder to show those difficulties disadvantage them compared to others.

Is he small pension more than £5.77 a week? If so he is better off than those on pension credit and WFA so you can reassure him he has no need to worry.

Sorry to derail but does anyone remember that in one of the many! Mumsnet threads about private school VAT increases a poster posted a link to an article laying out some arguments supporting the increase. I’ve spent ages trying to find it but there were so many threads and a google search hasn’t brought anything up. I think it was in the past 3 or 4 months, certainly prior to the election. If anyone knows what I’m talking about and has the link could they post. It’s driving me mad!

For Tories

Not just Tories

The Labour government are playing upon people’s bitterness and envy towards those who on the face of it are better off than them without having actually properly assessed the impact.

So they're just like any other Labour administration then!

As far as WFA goes, the pensioners I feel sorry for are those who, because they've been careful with their money, now have a little too much, whereas those who had a similar income through their lives but chose to piss it up the wall will continue to be carried by the rest of us.

Yes, because there's only two types of pensioner isn't there? The hard working, frugal, sensible type who worked their arse off and lived off tinned spam so as not to be a burden, and the feckless, wrong uns who spent all their money on bingo and holidays in Benidorm leaving your good self to support them in their old age. Nobody ever worked all their lives but had an income so low and/or a life so challenging they managed to save no more than their funeral plan. No one ever worked in an easy job at a moderate pace, saved nothing, but ended up with an inheritance and a public sector pension.
Every pensioner will have had a different life and different path to their circumstances in retirement. So tired of this oversimplistic deserving and non deserving poor narrative.

Every pensioner will have had a different life and different path to their circumstances in retirement. So tired of this oversimplistic deserving and non deserving poor narrative.

I am tired of the poor standard of comprehension on this site although it should come as no surprise! Clearly, to an intelligent person, I was not dividing pensioners into two camps, I was clearly referring to a subset who will be badly hit by this vote-catching policy.

I know exactly what you were doing. You were insinuating that people will lose out on the WFA who are more morally deserving of it than others who will keep it. Because those in the first group were more sensible than those in the second. You were doing it as part of your wider narrative that under Labour hard work and frugality is 'punished' whereas under the Tories its rewarded. Which is of course, a lie.