I was, I must admit, slightly disappointed to learn that chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves has removed my entitlement to the winter fuel payment. I understood that she had to start repairing the economic mess left behind by the Conservatives by taking “hard/tough/difficult decisions”, but my winter fuel payment? Really?
I used last year’s to pay for part of our meet and greet parking arrangements at Gatwick Airport for this year’s holiday and I was planning to invest this year’s on Lindsey Buckingham’s new box set and a decent single malt whisky, but now I shall have to pay for it from my regular income. How unfair is that?
I jest, of course. I welcomed the winter fuel payment, being paid as it was on a universal basis because that way it was cheaper than means-testing. But I welcomed it for all the wrong reasons. For me, it was a tax-free lump sum which I could spend on what I wanted, rather than what it was intended for. Axing the payment to those who don’t really need it, but ensuring it still goes to those who do is probably the right thing to do, always assuming it actually does go to them. And that’s the problem.
For reasons of ignorance and/or pride, hundreds of thousands of elderly folk don’t claim the Pension Credit which is eligible to poorer pensioners. And given that our state pension is among the lowest in the western world, you can understand why there is a concerning degree of pensioner poverty in our country. Now that the government has realised the disastrous state of the public finances and acted to address it, they now need to double down that the very poorest pensioners are not made poorer.
For most pensioners, especially those who have made their own arrangements, as well as paying into the state scheme, losing the winter fuel payment may be a disappointment. Who, after all, doesn’t want a bit of free money every now and then? But that’s the point really. For most of us, it was free money for us to do with what we wanted. In straightened financial times, something had to give.
I would hope that the government launches an immediate campaign to ensure that all old folk seek to claim everything to which they are entitled. At a stroke, many pensioners would get a substantial hike in their incomes, plus the winter fuel payment. We are told by various agencies that some 800,000 people could be affected in a good way. Then let’s get on it right now.
I don’t want to read the kind of nonsense about people who have made provision for their occupational and private pensions subsidising those who didn’t bother. Sure, there will be plenty of examples of that, but the general picture is far more nuanced than that. Not everyone’s life is the same. Different people have different issues and different problems and it would be quite wrong to suggest that everyone on Pension Credit simply pissed away their income, expecting the state to bail them out when they got old. As with everything else, there will always be some wrong ‘uns, but in the main there will be myriad reasons why people don’t have enough money to enjoy retirement as they would want to.
I’m thinking that ending the universal winter fuel payment was the right thing to do, so long as poorer folk don’t lose out. As we have pointed out, ensuring that the means-testing works is a vital part of the government’s work. But if we really want to point the finger of blame, then just look at 14 years of chaotic Conservative incompetence and recklessness which has given us a country where everything is broken and nothing works.
The repair job for Broken Britain has begun. It will be a long road but it’s also a necessary one. It was nice to have that free money, especially for those who didn’t really need it, but if we need to target limited resources, this is a very good way of doing it.
