Lisa Nandy ‘No pensioner will be worse off this year’

[IwantToRetire]

So many threads this could have been added to, but on one level you have to admire the sheer bravado on LN making this statement. So thought I would acknowledge her grasp on facts by giving her a headline!

The culture secretary has defended Labour’s winter fuel payment cut, insisting “No pensioner will be worse off this winter”.

Lisa Nandy insisted the government is taking “tough decisions to stabilize the economy”, when she appeared on ITV’s Peston show on Wednesday evening (9 October).

Ms Nandy insisted: “We haven’t taken £300 from pensioners

“There are many hundreds of families paying hundreds of pounds more in rent or mortgages because of the economic chaos caused by the previous government.”

Ms Nandy said the government is working hard to ensure the poorest pensioners are on pensioner credit.

She said: “No pensioner will be worse off this winter than the last winter.”

Culture secretary defends winter fuel payment cut: ‘No pensioner will be worse off this year’ (yahoo.com)

“We have to accept - you have to accept - there will be hundreds of thousands of the poorest pensioners under the £11,400 income you will not reach this year,” Lewis said passionately.

“You are taking money out of their hands. Do you accept the truth, the reality is that's what will practically happen. I'm saying it, Age UK are saying it, others are saying it.

"So let's be honest, you're willing to accept the collateral damage of hundreds of thousands of the poorest pensioners, many on dementia, not getting the winter fuel payment."

Nandy, visibly taken aback, responded that she was “not willing to accept that” (clip of exchangevia link below).

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24640552.labour-minister-squirms-martin-lewis-grills-live-tv/

I would draw the line in the same spot at child benefit. I I would also deal with it in the same way

The basic state pension has increased by £676 and the full state pension by £936. Household energy costs are holding steady or falling. How exactly are pensioners worse off?

Your state pension is paid every four weeks, not every month.

So divide the £871.76 by 4 to get the weekly figure.

If you want the annual figure, multiply it by 13.

That's brilliant, Cher! So that works out to £217.94. I'm eighteen quid a week better off! 😀

I am on state pension and I am worse off this year.

Yes - the basic pension increased, but it increases in line with inflation etc, so the increase goes to higher prices. The increase in pension doesn't make you better off, it just covers increasing costs!

Since last year:
My Council Tax has risen by 15%
Home Insurance (buildings and contents) has gone up
Food has sky rocketed
Cost of goods and services has rocketed: boiler service, replacement spectacles, dentist, shoes. Window cleaning. And do on.

These costs are rising for everyone, of course. But just to state the obvious reply to LN's weasel implication that the increase in basic state pension means that people are not 'worse off'.

I could stop having my windows cleaned once a month, it feels like a bit of a luxury, but I know the guy who runs our small local cleaning company is also having to feed his family and keep them warm!

Everything is shooting up in price at a remarkable rate. Except, oddly, petrol.

@WhosPink
Deduct the former WFA from the total increase.
Leaving a net rise of 636 or 736, depending on the level of former WFA.

Then deduct 15% rise in council tax. Huge rises in food bills. Rises in household insurance, cost of replacement glasses, dentist bills, boiler servicing. My water has gone up too.

My CT increase accounts for 25% of my net pension increase.

Nandy is a fool, but what's your beef with Martin Lewis, @Toseland? Personally I think he's a very good man indeed.

Not really. If the state pension has gone up since last winter and fuel costs are down then you need to factor these in as well, and she may be the same or maybe even better.

I'm not saying either of these are the case btw just that it's not as simple as everyone being worse off due to the loss of the WFA.

Poor Lisa being picked on with facts (sarcasm)

I wonder if she'll be a Old Trafford tomorrow. 😀

wait until Iran catches fire.

I cannot tell you how much I detest people who use the arguement that because benefits for some people with children aren't good enough, then pensioners should also suffer. WtF?! Stop listening to reactionary drivel.

You wouldn't tell a union fighting for an increase that they are totally out of line for asking for an increase when workers in another union are worse off.

If you actually care about children living in povert, effing campaign against those who made them live like this. Government.

re Triple lock - how many time does this have to said.

There is a triple lock because compared to other countries UK state pensions are pathetic, and (cant be bothered to check when / how) politicians were shamed enough be this to introduce the triple lock to try and bring UK state pensions into line with other european countries.

The fact that so many commentators dont seem to know this, and should in fact be monitoring that process to see if the UK has in any way improved the UK pension against european pensions.

The triple lock is a fixed formula and is sheer chance whether the figures from the month of the year are good or bad.

And before those of you whining about why anyone should care about old people living on less that £12,000 a year, they also use a similar formula to calculate social rents.

Are those who think it is just awful that the state is trying to rectify their earlier failure to protect pensioners, equally campaigning for fixed rent increase based on some random month, and that tenants have to pay even if their landlord (LC or HA) has let their property become a slum.

What is it with people who are so outraged that old people have rights.

Are you just as angry at the workers who have been given a fairly hefty pay rise (those with political clout, none for hospital cleaners).

That's what the issue is.

Labour was too cowardly and underhand to announce they were going to do it priot to the election.

They did it within weeks of pensioners expecting their WFA, and said not to worry dears, you will be getting a bigger pension in April - those of you who haven't died.

Lets face it if the Tories had done this, those trying to say its okay, pensioners can just sit in a room with a blanket and occassionally an electric fire, they would be all outraged at such an out of touch, hostile attack on old people.

I wish I hadn't started this thread.

Some of the comments are so startling, I wish I could unread them.

This is about on a par with reading today that some hospitals who would in the past have provided wheelchair support to attend clinics etc., are now being told they can hire a wheel chair, from some sort of boris bike, type docking system.

Not forgetting that in the past FWR has been very adept and collecting the continuing (I dont know what I am talking about) Nandyism, I was hoping there would be a few of those to snigger over.

They seem to be endless.

How she ever got to be an MP is beyond comprehension.

@IwantToRetire well said 👏.
I never cease to be disappointed by the blatant ageism on MN .
Pensioners are people too !

Why means testing isn't fair https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2013/jan/14/means-testing-benefits-not-efficient-fair
maybe 11 years old, but nothing has changed in terms of this being worth doing.

Comparison of UK to European Pensions
https://forcespensionsociety.org/2021/04/how-do-uk-pensions-compare-with-those-in-other-countries/

Not forgetting a point that has come up on other threads, that if Labour were sucessfull in getting all those who could claim pension credit but dont, the amount they would then be paying out would wipe out the savings Labours says is so essential.

So what was / is their actual motivation.

Apparently 1% increase on tax for the richest group would raise more money.

Its not only that they carried it out in such an unprincipled way, but that in terms of plugging the Tories "gaping hole" why make pensioners the first group to suffer. (Not forgetting they kept the 2 child limit.)

Its like Labour is trying to out do the Tories as the nasty party.

I agree that most benefits are based on the household but the only one that I am aware of that is based on tax band is Child Benefit. A family that has 2 parents each earning £55K will receive the full Child Benefit. A family that has 1 parent earning £65K and the other earning £20K will receive nothing. I don't see how doing the same for WFP would be equitable which is why I suggested that using tax bands would be complicated.

And what about inflation in this financial year? The state pension increase has to be higher than inflation + the actual cost of things like council tax increases, loss of winter for allowance for all pensioners to 'not be worse off'. My PIL are already worse of without factoring in losing the winter fuel allowance. The rate at which their council tax, house, pet and car insurance has increased + food inflation has seen to that.

The state pension increase has to be higher than inflation

No it doesn't. As I said up thread it is based on an agreed forumla which means it is totally accidental as it is based on the same month each year. Just as social housing rents are.

Under the triple lock system, the state pension increases each April in line with whichever of these three measures is highest:

• inflation in the September of the previous year, using a measure called the Consumer Prices Index (CPI)
• the average increase in total wages across the UK for May to June of the previous year
• or 2.5%

The triple lock was introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010.

It was designed to ensure the value of the state pension was not overtaken by the increase in the cost of living or the incomes of working people.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the Labour government will keep the triple lock until the end of the current Parliament.

(One year the increase was just over £1 ie its a lottery)

But not surpriesed to see Rachel Reeves saying they will reviewthe tripple lock. Not on the basis it should be done, ie had it done its job of bringing UK pensions in line with european ones.

And now doubt everybody could tell her she has broken the Government's contract with pensioners, but she just shrug.

Hardly surprising to see it was in fact the Coalition Government bought this in. Another example of how Labour is now more regressive than the Tories.

And no doubt in working towards lowering pensions Labour will then be able to say this shows that families living in poverty are just a norm as UK benefits will be about keeping people on subsistance levels.

Although of course pensions are not a benefit.

They are the right of people who have paid their contributions. The fact that the managers of the money, various UK Governments have mismanaged the moeny and aren't paying the price is another example of how being an MP seems to be that you can be totally useless, cause enourmous damage, and never have to pay up or be fined.

For anyone who thinks they, or a friend or relative is not getting what they should, use the online calculator at https://www.entitledto.co.uk/ to find out what you might be entitled to.

Not just pensioners, but anyone trying to claim other benefits.

And also for anyone who has never had to claim, it is really educational to use it to find out in a "what if" situation what benefits you might be able to get.

It really helps understand how the system works.

As someone said yesterday. "most people thought that rich pensioners meant an income of £100,000 a year NOT £11,000"
The extra spiteful part of this was bringing it in for this year meaning so little notice.
But I suppose it was to fund the Loyal and Faithful train drivers quickly.

As the state pension is the higher of the CPI increase, the wages increase, or 2.5%, of course it has to be equal or higher than inflation (as measured by the CPI).

CPI is an annual measure. So the CPI in September is a measure of the increase in value of various specific things from last September to this September.

You can argue there is a bit of a lag, because the increase is given the following April.
You could argue CPI is not the right measure of inflation.
But fundamentally, the statement that the state pension rises at least as much as inflation is true.

Are Labour engaging in the generational war? Maybe this cut is at least in part supposed to appeal to younger voters?

I think the Autumn budget will see cuts across the board. I think it was one of the few things you can cut and see the benefit to the treasury in quick order - so was chosen for that purpose.

Although leveraging generational animosity to motivate supporters to enthusiastically justify the damage it will cause as an accidental and unimportant quirk probably doesn't hurt.

Maybe yes, and at the very least, they underestimated the scale of media (and public) opposition. We've all been hearing a lot of loud, middle-class voices criticising the WFA for years now, talking about millionaire pensioners, and won't somebody think about the poor newly-weds trying to get on the housing ladder...

Actually, 'newly-weds' has a real old-fashioned, 60s, 70s feel to it, doesn't it? Does anyone actually say that any more? I guess people don't get married so much now. Or, like my DS, they do it twenty years later as some sort of legal afterthought.

Nine million pensioners to receive Winter Fuel Payments this winter

Everyone over the State Pension age in England and Wales with an income of, or below, £35,000 a year will benefit from a Winter Fuel Payment this winter.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nine-million-pensioners-to-receive-winter-fuel-payments-this-winter

Shame they didn't do this to begin with.

The cut off point of pension credit was so blatantly stupid, or just ignorant.

Surely someone in Government understands about the cliff edge decision that make the benefit system so stupid.

I suppose I should grudgingly admit they are prepared to undo the damage, but it doesn't fill me with any more trust in their ability to make decisions.