To not understand the uproar over winter fuel allowance being cut?

[virgocatlover]

It's not being cut. The poorest pensioners on pension credit will still get it. It's only being changed so it's no longer a universal payment anymore.

The energy price cap was £1834 October 2023. This October it's £1717. So it's £117 cheaper than it was last winter for average use.

In April 2024 the state pension rose by 8.5% - a rise of around £900 for those on full state pension. It's expected to rise another £400 next April.

Many energy companies still have schemes for those in genuine need. Plus the warm home discount exists for those on a low income.

I understand pensions who receive just state pension and no other income may be annoyed but there has to be a cut somewhere. But pensioners are unlikely to have the expense of rent/ mortgages in retirement which is the biggest expense to those of working age.

However most of the moans I've heard and seen seem to be from the well off pensioners who are cross about losing something. I know a woman who rents out three houses and spends the winter in the Caribbean who is spitting feathers about losing the payment. Another who spent the money on their Christmas booze.

There is so much uproar about this which didn't happen when there were so many other cuts affecting young people/workers/families. All other benefits are means tested, so should WFA.

People still see pensioners as those who fought in the war and counting pennies at the till to pay for their bread and milk. But that's just not the case these days.

So they still pay rent…

I have neighbours that are pensioners , a good few years ago they sold their house and spent the money , they bought themselves a brand new motorhome and regularly to away for weeks on end . They now privately rent , that's paid for , don't pay council tax .
They have a large amount of money kept at home so they have no money over the cap in the bank , their daughter also has some of their money . They smoke and drink .
They get full pension , he gets both parts of pip so he get road tax free .
Alongside their motorhome , they drive a car each.
She gets a lower rate pip . They get pension credit , all the allowances going , the warm home allowance , all the £300 cost of living allowances . If they ever need a care home that will be paid for them.

My parents went without holidays to pay off their mortgage early, have one car , don't smoke or drink , worked right up to retirement , don't qualify for pension credit because each have savings just over the cap.
Pay council tax , pay full cost heating bills . Are not in best health but wouldn't get pip .
Have to live on pension and the savings they worked hard for . Will start off having to pay if went in a carehome.

So who got it right ?

Is there any evidence that free childcare increases the birthrate? i don't think so.
People don't want children because they want freedom to spend money as they wish, they cannot afford the house with extra bedrooms, career choices.
why have kids if someone else brings them up in childcare setting?

Investing in our future would be in skills and training for everyone, esp the young and in far better healthcare including dentistry.

Handing out money to give to multi national childcare providers is stupid, just as giving money to pensioners to hand to highly profitable energy companies is.

why is UK childcare so expensive? same with electricity prices, this needs to be addressed first.

@Annabel28 don't have children you can't afford.
Having children is a choice
Growing old is not
If you are financially struggling then don't have them
Or at least pay for them yourself so we are not wasting government money

Labour have a very simple solution- keep the universal WFP and take it back from pensioners paying higher rate tax. This matches the two child cap arrangements- and people are happy to complain about the effects of this on single parents.
It's so hypocritical to sub TATA steel £500m for absolutely no return ( maybe six months of jobs) and penalise working class pensioners who have paid all their NI contributions and couldn't afford a private pension.
Not to mention pensioners who were victims of BP and BHS pension scandals, they are now twice penalised even though they may be on the full state pension.

The last census states 71% of all those over 65 own their homes outright with no mortgage

It's not data based evidence, but I know people who waited to have children til they had more money, or who stopped at one when they really wanted more because they couldn't afford the childcare years. And some who just couldn't afford it and chose not to, but they did want them. Equally know people who couldn't afford it and did it anyway but that's another story.

Before the free hours changed this year, we didn't qualify for anything until DD turned 3 (she isn't yet). We were just bringing in more than it was costing to send her plus the costs associated with me actually going to work etc. So if we had wanted another, we'd have had to have either waited until she was at school, but therefore had around 8-9 years of just scraping by, or I'd have had to jack in work and we'd still only be scraping by. As it is, we didn't think we could have any, focused on careers and had a surprise baby a bit later on, so we were in a financially better position than we would have been if we'd tried in my 20s.

Like I say, no data to back it up, just realised life experiences from my own life and people I know. But I know if more of those people had access to free childcare, they'd have had more children.

I don't disagree with removing the WFA, and I'm in receipt of it, BUT, not this year. It will take months to sort out new PC applications and people will still miss out. It's not been thought through.

Ok except pensioners had CB 0-18 for their children. Now many do not.

The amount of times Labour has tried to push the increase in April and pushed as headlines by BBC and pp on here

That doesn't help pensioners in winter who can't use heating and might have arthritis or something else

I can't imagine the same people would have been so keen if the COL direct payment was delayed until April

Have you stopped to think how much it actually costs to sell and buy? Estate Agent fees, Conveyancing, Land Searches, Stamp Duty and removal company. The new build flat won’t be a lot cheaper than the poorly insulated old house and there will be ongoing maintenance costs associated with living in a flat and probably leasehold payments too. Believe me, I’ve looked into it and would need a lottery win of at least £50K to finance such a move and live in the flat for the next 20 years.

My late father used to pay me (a student with temp jobs) his winter fuel allowance so I could heat my flat as he lived in shelter d accommodation and didn’t have to worry about affording his own and he was only on a teacher’s pension plus state pension, he was hardly rich, just comfortable.

While I take your point about directing benefits accurately, and everyone seems to agree on that, I'd ask if you really can't understand the difference between a healthy teenager not having heating (totally normal when I was a student; we only went home to sleep) and an elderly person with frailer health not being able to afford heating in their main environment. You don't have equal needs.
Also, a pensioner with a teaching pension as well as a full state pension is not representative of the people who need help with heating. Your situation doesn't give you insight into the lives at risk of damage here.

But I do think many pensioners need to think about the size of the homes they live in. My mum( who isn’t moaning about losing the WFA) lives alone in a massive 4 bedroom house. The state shouldn’t fund the heating of a house that is far too big for one person.

There's people on this thread who are just insistent that "downsizing" is the best option, without taking into account the fact that lots of people do live in smaller houses that just happen to be worth a bit more money.

Take into account the costs of selling & moving, and then buying somewhere smaller and/or in a cheaper area and actually it doesn't make any sense because they've then lost most of that cash released from the asset, meaning they don't actually have it to live on and potentially had to move away from their community and support system.

If they can't afford to heat their 5 bed detached listed pile in the middle of nowhere with single glazing they can't change, then yes, downsize. But it's not a blanket solution.

Read somewhere that that is a very expensive process. Cheaper just to pay the WFA.

You are ridiculous
Kids don't choose to be born any more than pensioners afford to grow old. Why should babies be cold if pensioners are warm?
And why should those who can't afford to have kids PAY for the pensioners who could have as many kids as they wanted???

As a young person I needed two jobs and so did my husband otherwise we couldn’t afford to buy a house! Now it’s paid off and we are near to retirement.
We struggled the whole time we had a mortgage.
We have had a couple of years since then watching the pennies but getting the chance to have a few holidays. We don’t spend loads of money preferring to go without takeaway coffees and save to go away.
We both work part time and spend time together while we can. We have seen friends dropping like flies.
Soon we will retire.Surely we should be able to still have some kind of life after we retire? We have worked and paid in all our lives. don’t we at least deserve to not sit and freeze?
Even in the south we still have poverty!
Also I just want to point out that when we do manage to have our holiday abroad there are always more northerners than southerners. Prices up north are much cheaper than in the south and other than London wages are pretty much the same. I’m not slagging of northerners ( always loved how friendly,down to earth and straight talking they are ) but even they are shocked by prices down south to what they pay for the same up north

The decision to confine winter fuel payments to those who really need it is offset by an increase in state pension.
There will always be those on the margins of benefits policies who feel aggrieved ... that is unavoidable.
There needs to be a push to make sure that everyone entitled to pension credit gets it.
I speak as a pensioner who will lose the winter fuel payment. I am not rich, but can afford my fuel bills.

The likes of Martin Lewis and Age Concern are campaigning to get the cut off point increased BECAUSE of how many low income pensioners this will negatively impact.

Yes there are richer pensioner who don’t need it. And therefore shouldn’t have it.

But there are also lots of pensioners who don’t qualify for pension credit because they’re just over the threshold and therefore also aren’t entitled to any other benefits, who DO need it.

People aren’t angry at rich pensioners not being able to receive it anymore. They’re angry at the low cut off point, putting many low income pensioners who aren’t entitled to any benefits, into further poverty.

Ok, I'm 66 and a pensioner. I did not have my child in the 1950s when larger families were more common. Growing up, I didn't know anyone who had more than 3 children because by the 1960s, people could and did choose.
This pensioner has one daughter, born in the 1990s because that's what we could afford.
I worked alongside many women over the course of my career. Only knew one with 4 children.

I am one of those who will potentially miss the winter fuel payment. We have a low and diminishing income from self employment and have been claiming WTC. I now need to switch to Pension Credits but it's nowhere near as easy as it's made out. I spent a frustrating time on the phone yesterday trying to get advice and finally gave up. I will try again.
However, I never believed all pensiohers should have received it. We met a couple who called the fuel allowance the Moet fund because every year they spent it on champagne. It was a ridiculous waste of government money and should always have been means tested. The Tories didn't do it because pensioners represent a huge portion of their vote and I'm glad Labour are doing it in an effort to create a fairer society.

It isn’t unavoidable though.

Martin Lewis has suggested anyone in the lower council tax bands should still get it. Rather than the super low cut off point the Government have decided to go with.

Not really. She'd have to be 68 at retirement. I worked full time for 37 years, Wish I'd realised with the hike in retirement age to 66 (stopped at 60 cos ill and burnt out) meant I was 5 years short of NI contributions. I thought I was paid up.

It was a ridiculous waste of government money and should always have been means tested. The Tories didn't do it because pensioners represent a huge portion of their vote and I'm glad Labour are doing it in an effort to create a fairer society.

Labour introduced it!

Exactly