The £1.4BILLION for Winter Fuel Allowance has been used for Foreign Aid

[CrispsnDips]

…the exact same amount!
It looks like there may be a turnaround and the WFA might be reinstated (something about the Trade Unions objecting…?)

@Sinisterdexter

a 4 hour wait for an ambulance. In your dreams. My MIL had to wait 12 hours recently with a potential broken hip. can you imagine laying on a hard floor in your own urine for 12 hours in chronic pain. Eventually they ignored the medical advice not to move her and put her in a chair to wait. Even then it was with the door unlocked overnight by herself as relatives had to work. Labour controlled NHS, which doesnt bode well.

It bodes very well. There was a 70% satisfaction rating for the NHS at the end of the last Labour government. Hardly any A&E waits longer than four hours or waits of more than 18 weeks for elective surgery.

Blossomtoes - we all know your figures dont reflect the situation in the welsh labour controlled NHS currently. you are presumably talking about when there was a UK wide labour governemnt and that was in a very different public health/post covid situation

I’m talking about the last UK Labour government. Do you not think if I meant Wales I’d have said so? The Covid excuse is wearing a bit thin now and the population hasn’t radically changed in 14 years, the Darzi report is clear about the absolutely appalling state of the NHS and Streeting has committed to reform and improve it.

What we had 14 years ago doesn’t reflect the uk now. More older people and more ill people. They will just have over money in wages with no improvement in services. The last government spent 33% more on the NHS over 10 years. It got us nowhere. Unless we have massive reform, we just have a money pit for poorer and poorer services.

Did you confuse LBC with GB News? And with they do you mean Reform's James McMurdock?

Of course you don’t have anything to back up your OP. How convenient.

Thank you. That's why I said that I was happy to be corrected.

As a tax payer, I'm happy that some of my taxes is going towards our soft power abroad. Which is what foreign aid is. It's good value for money as it opens up trading and investment opportunities. It's not about throwing money at poor people and anyone who believes otherwise is spectacularly uneducated.

Also as a tax payer, I'm more than happy if some of my taxes helps Edith, who is in her 80s, has only the state pension and lives alone in social / rented housing, to pay for her heating in winter.

However, I'm absolutely not happy that for the past few years, some of my taxes have gone to Val and Derek, who are retired with excellent private pensions meaning their monthly income is bigger than mine, and have a five bedroom house bought for pennies in the 80s that they own outright, to pay for their gas bill when at times I've struggled to pay my own when prices rocketed.

I am not convinced that Labour have got the cut off rate entirely correct and this needs addressing, but it's absolutely right that people like Val and Derek should no longer be receiving winter fuel allowance.

SOME pensioners will get £400+ more next year. Others, on the older type of State Retirement Pension, will get £300+. This is unfair. Why is it happening like this?

They can.... if there is evidence

Most of the people coming to Britain claiming asylum do not come from former British colonies. According to the Refugee Council In the year to June 2024, 57% of small boat arrivals were from just five nationalities: Afghan (18%), Iranian (13%), Vietnamese (10%), Turkish (10%) and Syrian (9%).

Foreign Aid doesn’t necessarily go to the world’s poorest people. It’s not the UK being selfless. It’s often tied in to arms deals. We lend them money so they can buy our weapons, planes etc. We aren’t spending it on feeding starving refugees. 57 million went to India, which has its own space programme including a Mars mission.

There are pros and cons in each generation. There were no universal credit salary top ups, no free childcare, no free breakfast clubs for kids (finding childcare was a nightmare full stop); pension provision varied with your job and even that has been badly eroded for years in the private sector. And lets not forget 15% interest rates and the effect it had on property prices.....our house dropped in value by 20%. No student loans, parents were expected to pay and not all did....granted no tuition fees.

there are always pros and cons and its always harder when you start out

Because when the pension was reformed in 2016 the basic amount was set slightly above the 'decency threshold' which underpins Pension Credit. Nobody getting the new State Pension at the full amount of 221.20 will get Pension Credit unless they get extra cash eg for being a carer or being severely disabled.

If you are on the pre 2016 pension of £169.50, without adding anything for SERPS and other iterations of the second state pension, and with no works pension then you'll get PC taking you to £218.15. You'll get full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction too.

Afghanistan was never a British Colony but that wasn't for want of trying!!

People always quote headline rates for pensions, but many people on the old pension also get SERPS, widows' pensions and more, that those on the new one don't. Also, by no means everyone on the new pension will get the full rate - it is entirely dependent on contributions. If someone gets more than the headline rate on the new pension it is because they have paid into an occupational one - they aren't handouts. Means-testing anything penalises those who have tried to improve their lives by dragging them down to the level of those who haven't. It's not easy to get it right.

I'm not arguing for a universal WFP, but I do wish people would stop assuming that 'all pensioners' are anything. Pensioners are a very disparate group. I'd like to see standing charges for fuel scrapped for everyone of all ages, and much more done to ensure that younger people don't sleepwalk into impoverished older age because of inadequate provision.

@Bulldog01 Use the money you got from downsizing to insulate your house. Was unwise of you to buy an old Victorian property at your stage in life.

Eaten away by loss of WFA for on basic state pension, and for those just above it, they will be taxed at 20% on anything over the personal allowance.

So the net effect of the triple lock is less.

Yes to means testing the WFA, but not at the low threshold it has been set at. A single pensioner living on basic state pension will be very stretched. And likely cold.

Well, quite!

I think a bigger issue is that pension credit entities people to so much more and it then makes these people much better off then those who don’t qualify by a small amount, say, £200. It’s a real benefit trap. My DM got little return from savings over the last 15 years but had a basic pension. Income always too high but paying bills was a worry so she turned the heating off. That’s the big danger. Just getting the Winter fuel allowance makes those on PC better off!

Essentially they should have started with no Winter fuel payment for higher tax payers. Then reviewed it. Not waiting for 5 minutes before announcing this was politically naive.

No it hasn’t.

Thank you.

'Means-testing anything penalises those who have tried to improve their lives by dragging them down to the level of those who haven't'.

There have been moments in my life when I have said that HMRC have a record of the earnings of all of us for all of our working lives, and never mind means-testing people on what they have now, means test them on what they've had for all of their working lives.

Yes, I know, I know, the poor will always be with us and I mustn't let anyone starve and I must feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and clothe the naked, but there are uncharitable moments of my life when I want to shout at the TV "A minority of them will be poor now but they'll have p----d a very great deal up the wall on their way through, while I was at sitting at home, thinking that a cream bun was the world's big treat."

Please notice that I did say 'a minority'.

Do you think some people get Pension Credit because they have mistakenly declared the wrong savings amount on the application form?

Do you think some people get Pension Credit because they have mistakenly declared the wrong savings amount on the application form?

Me? No, I doubt it. Or not many, at any rate. If someone is poor enough to get Pension Credit I suspect they'll know exactly how much they have in savings. I don't know what I said in the post you quoted that would draw you to the conclusion that I would think that?