To think those OAPs that have just lost their WFA should commit a crime? get released early into a budget heated hotel

[WhatShallIdo11]

i voted labour - very sorry now - I can’t get over that some OAPs will really suffer this winter whilst we are releasing prisoners, some of whom will be put up in hotels at the state payers expense

Reeves defends claiming thousands of pounds to heat her home
Rachel Reeves has defended her decision to claim £4,400 to heat her second home a day after MPs voted to scrap winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners.
Read in The Telegraph: https://apple.news/AVOi0-UWRSRaoccf1O3yFWQ

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Well if they think life as a prisoner and/or former prisoner will be more comfortable then I guess that's a choice they are free to make.

I don't think many will though, funnily enough.

Absolutely.

whilst we are releasing prisoners, some of whom will be put up in hotels at the state payers expense
Unlikely. If you were homeless before you went into prison you tend to remain homeless on your release.

Yes its the pensions at the edge of poverty who I am concerned for.

Means test, but not at a cliff edge, phase the reduction for for every 1 pound over the threshold winter fuel payment is reduced by 50% or something until an upper threshold. I think this would have been a fairer way to do it. As the threshold for no WFA is very low.

My df pays more tax than I do on his pension ( I don't begrudge him, he's worked bloody hard, in a difficult job and earned every penny). I wasn't very sympathetic about them losing their wfa.

When my dmil was alive, she would transfer it to us as she said we needed it more.

Anecdotally the pensioners I know will get by without, and for those who do still need it, the means testing will kick in. I hope they restore it when they've fixed the problems the tories left.

My mum and her friends are all in their 70s, with good pensions, mortgages paid-off, at least one foreign holiday a year, half of them have second homes. Last year they were saying how ridiculous it was that they all got the WFA automatically with no mechanism for refusing or returning it, while there were young families using food banks. I think some of them donated it to charity.
Means testing is the only sensible solution, although it could be argued that the cut-off is too low.

Prisoners need a roof too

They will have restrictions placed on them so can't just go to a friend/family if it's in a restricted area area!

Not all pensioners are champagne guzzling cruise goers.

Pension credit cut off is currently around £11500 a year.

Sure there should be some means testing, but £11500 FFS. I can't believe people are supporting this race to the bottom.

I agree the cut off is too low and should be phased up to a upper limit.

Yes I think the issue is how low the threshold is- it is a disgrace,

This!

OP, you really haven't thought this through have you?

My mother (80) has lost the payment.

On the plus side she's bought a £33,000 Lexus today so she can always crank up the heating in there.

Absolutely. As research showed, over a million pensioners live in poverty. Labour said they’d be the pensioners party.

They are liars.

‘Nearly 1 million people aged over 66 in the UK are living in deprivation, according to government statistics, the highest number since comparable records began.

Labour, which analysed figures from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) records, has vowed to be the party for pensioners, with plans to insulate millions of homes and reduce energy bills.‘

Bit of a laugh aren’t they really? Oh no not really. Despicable.

I wish there’d been this much fuss when millionaire David Cameron, who’d claimed DLA for his son, then took it away from millions of disabled people as soon as he became PM.

Meanwhile pensioners, as a group, are one of the least likely to be in poverty .

It is not about pensioners as a group. And I agree with means testing. I think the issue is how low the threshold is.

To be honest, this has been on my mind for a while.
It is daily, full of BS and some sound written up by bots.
This one is quite an interesting take: commit a crime to stay warm, lol

Why not just make everything based on contributions. If you have paid into the system (tax and NI) you get the equivalent back. Why should those that haven't paid enough NI get WFA while those that have are penalised. Seems backwards.

Exactly

The welfare system isn’t a private pension, it’s not a savings account.

Limiting the wfa to those who need it isn’t backwards, it’s stupid to hand it out to some of the wealthiest people in the country.

Dad left the NHS in a final salary pension at 55 he's had 70k a year for 30 years.

The max you could get from an NHS pension is 50% and that's if you'd worked there for 40 years. What job did your dad do that paid £140k in the NHS, 30 years ago??!

Apparently 1.4 million pensioners claim pension credit (so are entitled to wfa) and another 800,000 could claim. I guess a lot of the 1 million living in deprivation must be within those figures? It raises questions of is pension credit enough though and are people given enough help to apply. Personally I don't think all pensioners should get wfa, there's an awful lot who don't need it. But I do think it should've been tapered to help those just above the threshold.

Unbelievable.
taking from pensioners whilst cashing in.
come on Laura kuennesberg- I want to see Laura bring this up in an interview with Rachel Reeves

It is also a really poorly targeted benefit. If we want to support low income pensioners who cannot pay their energy bills lets fund a social tariff for them or voucher, not just hand out wads of unrestricted cash to everyone over 65.

TBH if we moved every low income pensioner to a online direct debit energy tariff it would probably save them near enough the same amount of money.