Means Testing The Winter Fuel Payment For Oaps

Funny how *this* particular benefit cut has got such a lot of publicity in the media. Day after day of it and the lead item. Very, very sympathetic coverage too.

I don't recall victims of other benefit cuts being interviewed one after another about how terrible it all is. I don't remember many parents of large families being asked about how they are going to pay their bills after the cruel two child benefit cap. Or refugees being given £30 of vouchers per week to live on. Or all those who lost their disability benefit with the change to PIP. Or any of the abuses heaped on 'jobseekers' by successive governments.

But now it's the poor old suffering pensioners, the OAPs, the senior citizens who are suffering, there are parliamentary rebellions, TUC outrage, acres of newsprint and media wailing and chest beating.

Funny that isn't it. To see these leathery boomer bastads, with their gold-plated pensions, world cruises, million pound houses with no mortgage, their free university education and all the rest, suddenly allied in the same cause with the TUC.

And usually this demographic, such firm and decided, overwhelmingly Tory and Reform voters, who are usually *demanding* benefits be slashed for everyone else, are suddenly talking on the radio in a tremulous and quavering little voice about how they're going to be frightened to turn a bar on the fire on now and will probably DIE y'know.

So you're not poor enough to be on pension credit then. You've got your state pension PLUS some other income at least. And where's yer family? Can't they help out with a few bob if you're short? Or what about releasing some equity out of that £1m 4 bedroom family house you live all alone in? That'd pay a few bills.

Most boomers have lived a very fat and content existence. They've helped destroy the environment, wreck the housing market, mess up health and education and left following generations worse off and with a shorter life expectancy.

Screw 'em I say.


(P.S. and I speak as nearly a pensioner myself by the way)

 

Whew, you expertly swerved #NotAllBoomers.

 

To be fair, coverage of something like the "bedroom tax" was also exhaustive.

There are many reasons why this one has sparked so much interest including and not limited to:

Labour campaigned agsint dropping it - then dropped it.
Labour aren't the "nasty party" but appear to be so in this case.
We've been told it's more expensive to means test it than just pay to everyone but they're going ahead regardless. There are better ways of means testing or administering it.
It's been justified by suggesting that a previously unknown but publicised "black hole" needs funding, when nearly half of that "black hole" was created by decisons made by Labour and won't likely make a dent in it.
It will affects people close to the poverty line.
It's a marquee policy which propoer Labour supporters won;t like and it's a test of Starmer's leadership so early in the term.

In the grand scheme of things it's small beer but until we get the budget details we need to complain about something.

 

Half the ‘black hole’ is down to decisions Labour made 14+ years ago? If that’s true, then I’ll suggest that all the black hole and a myriad of other disastrous situations are down to decisions the Conservatives made 40 years ago.
Your turn to put it down to Ramsay McDonald next.

 

£9.6Bn of it is the recent public sector pay awards.
WFA is estimated at £2Bn and a lot of that will still be paid out.
The FT raised a FOI request to get a breakdown of the £22Bn figure. The request was declined.

So if this £22Bn is actually a thing that needs to be solved we're scratching around for another £20Bn or so at the very least come October.

 

So what you're saying is that for the new Labour government to be able to abide by the ethical decision of honouring the pay awards proposed as fair, equitable & required by government-instituted independent pay review bodies, a £12bn + pre-existing black hole has been increased by the amount of those recommended pay awards to £22bn & that is not the fault of the government in power for the 14 years leading up to those recommendations. Are you suggesting that all governments should follow the previous policy of ignoring the recommendations of the review bodies which, whilst 'independent' are given quite stringent indications of what the parameters may be? If so, why appoint them in the first place?
I agree that issuing a breakdown of the £22bn is a reasonable expectation, although I'm as sure as hell the previous government would have refused to do so also.

The fact that WFA is £2bn at most underlines how much of a storm in a teacup the whole thing is, but finding the funds to recalibrate the status of critical public sector workers will need every nook & cranny investigated. I think the main problem with so many of 'means-tested' benefits is the 'precipice' nature of the eligibility criteria. Someone I know has been approached by a member of staff asking if it is possible for them NOT to receive the recently-agreed pay increase at his company as that will push their family income marginally above the eligibility threshold for benefit resulting in a significant net reduction in that income. That seems a pretty illiterate system!

Let's just hope some of the real big sums previously allowed to 'slip through the net' get collected in future.

 

No, what I'm saying is scrapping the WFA is a political choice.
Blaming the previous government for that decision is not honest.
The way it has been scrapped is ill thought out, there are better ways to scrap it for the people that don't need it.

 

To be fair, the Conservative Government drove the country and its finances into a ditch and the country is far, far worse off as a result of 14 years of them holding the steering wheel. Ideologically the Tories object to public sector workers being paid any more than absolutely necessary and so significant chunks of public sector pay fell further and further behind. Then there were price rises, partly due to the lack of oversight of a greedy, opportunistic energy sector – and a belief that the market will see everyone right. Then came rampant and sustained inflation, accelerated directly by the policies of Truss and Kwarteng. Sunak wasted huge sums of money with a direct policy – furlough, which wasn't means tested either, excluded a big chunk of the working population (small business owners and freelancers) and was subject to fraud on a monumental scale. There was no attempt to manage that or recoup losses due to fraud. Just a shrug of the shoulders and 'oh dear'. These people and policies are to blame first.

What Labour is doing is making a not very good job of a terrible situation.

The winter fuel allowance has been a terrible political own goal but it's actually not a terrible idea to remove a blanket payment that doesn't take into account people's circumstances.

As @hornmeister says the problem is they haven't made the political argument first, or explained that the least well off will be compensated in other ways by the benefits system. It's allowed people who have a superficial understanding or interest can just assume that all penisioners are having their little purse clasps prised open and coins are being taken out by Rachel Reeves' bony fingers.

But let's be in no doubt, the Conservatives policies plundered the country's finances in multiple ways. They prioritised things that benefit them and their supporters. The people who devised and profited from the PPE fraud ought to be facing criminal charges. There ought to be serious consequence for the people who concealed huge black hole hole in the public finances.

The egregious actions of the Tory party must be taken into account before you start saying: "Oh, well, Labour..." Because that is actively pulling the wool over your own eyes.

We are not a serious country. The whole discourse is dominated by the who-said-what argument over the winter fuel allowance while next to nothing has been done to improve the insulation of our homes (among the worst in Europe), except complicated and weird schemes (and scams) carried out by grifters. Every attempt to put this on the agenda over the past two decades by people who know what they are talking about has been shouted down by simpletons on TV bellowing about "THE COST, THE COST."

Well, here we are. The costs manifest themselves in different ways – and maybe not all at once – but they have to be paid eventually.

 

Good to see people are starting to understand.

 

Nearly all boomers?

 

I'm all in favour of mean testing the WFA. Any mean OAPs shouldn't get it. And there's plenty of them to go around...

 

But #NotAllPeople.

Stop generalising!

 

Right-wing arguments:

People should work and work should pay. But unionised workers shouldn't be paid too much.

Benefits are bad. But not all benefits. Benefits for wealthy pensioners are sacrosanct.

The massive error Labour has made is failing to make the argument. A big own goal and one that could have been avoided.

 

Agreed. I'm actually for scrapping it altogether as long as those that need it properly are compensated.

Labour failed to set the threshold to a fair level imho. Some who need it, will no longer get it. That's the issue if you have a WFA, to assess it fairly costs more than just giving it to everyone.

They campaigned against when the Tories were rumoured to drop it.
They claim thousands themselves for their own energy bills.

It's just bad policy all round, given there's been no impact assessment and the level of fallout from it, it smacks of rushed policy. All for something in the grand scheme of things won't raise an awful lot and in reality probably makes little difference to many. Politically naive imho.

 

Do they?

 

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/freedom-of-information/rfi-202208-12

yes

 

It is a political choice in the way that any governmental policy is ‘political’. Even ideological decisions are political as the ideology drives the politics.
Which political constituency do you think this policy was aimed at? If you’re suggesting it was a cynical political decision, then I don’t think that stacks up with the resulting (exaggerated) furore. I’m willing to accept it was the first (and maybe easiest) of a batch of measures to try to get some money into the coffers. I agree with your objection to the bluntness of the eligibility criteria employed, and I have commented on that in other posts. It is claimed that any sort of ‘sliding scale’ eligibility system would be too expensive to implement; I find it hard to believe that current IT could not devise a solution at reasonable cost.
(Although for god’s sake don’t ask Fujitsu!)

 

Fuggin idiots some of these , so called, soshalists.
Who will suffer if you stop , carte blanche, WFP ?
Those who have a few bob ? Or those who need the money ?
Vote Labour , you know it makes sense , especially if you are poor .
Because affluent white liberal morons think that you are all loaded .
W*nkers

 

Davy Crocket. Every time.

Nail. On. Head.

Well that's that settled, I reckon we can close the thread.

 

Am I missing something or should the government simply done this; all pensioners receive it but as a lot of pensioners receive enough pension through final salary schemes, then change their tax codes to cover for part of it perhaps.

i.e. for simplicity's sake, assuming a pensioner receives £300 WFA, and their tax code is 1250L (£12500 tax free before paying 20%), if then for the full amount to be taxed back the tax code set to 1100L so they start paying 20% over £11k, so that if they earn over £12500 PA then the whole WFA is effectively returned. Thus making the WFA a taxable benefit, it won't hit the most vulnerable and those who can live without it won't strictly see it.

 

Going back to the original post.

The issue is a few things.
There is a perception is that all pensioners are paper millionaires, because they have paid for their houses. It might be the case in the South East, but not the further North you go. Arguably you recieve the same cash no matter where you live in the country. The cost of the house is pretty immaterial.

It gets a lot colder in Scotland, N.Ireland and the North than it does in Cornwall or Worthing, but how on earth could you calculate one over the other. There is a good argument that those in Scotland or Cumbria should get more than someone on the Isle Of Wight.

Old people will suffer more with the cold than anyone else. We know that when we see them walking around our towns with their coats & jackets on, when the rest of us are in shorts and t-shirts. So there will be more illness, pressure on hospitals and deaths.

The trouble with making populist promises in opposition is that you look pretty bloody stupid when you change your mind in government.

I don't think anyone has a problem with means testing, a lot of pensioners have said that they could live with out the £300, others though it is a god send. There ought be some sort of opt out scheme. The government also know who is earning and paying a level of tax through HMRC. They could easily say the income limit is £x amount of pounds income.

If they turn round and said that from 2025...... or those who are on the lower state pension, about £175 a week, rather than those on the new upper level pension, about £230 a week would receive it. Therefore you are paying it to the smaller group, who earn less and are the eldest, there would then have been less complaint.

Saying it would cause a run on the pound and its about the £22bn black hole is a crap way of explaining it. Especially when they have made spending commitments around the overseas climate projects and public sector pay increases. The timing of the announcement was awful.

I did hear someone make a claim on LBC last week that the increased amount the government will be paying out in additional public sector pension contributions (23% they claimed- so £2000 a year extra x 23% = £460 a person in new pension contributions) comes to more than the whole of the Winter Fuel Allowance.

It's not a wrong policy, its just been really badly handled.

 

Hmmm but tax liability is calculated individually, whereas WFA is worked out on a household basis. So I imagine your scenario ends up costing a lot more?

 

I'm not reading all that. Is it available on audiobook?

 

I'm prepared to say it: if a few decent, honest, hardworking Boomers have to freeze a bit so we can piss off a few hundred thousand of the disgusting, entitled ones, I will accept their sacrifice.

 

Subscription podcast only.

 

That's part of the problem why they said means testing it was too expensive I think.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think the policy should be reversed. Better to ensure those in fuel poverty are not hit.

But this isn’t down to ‘liberal morons.’ It’s down to the terrible politics of many older people who voted for 15 years for a Party to fleece everyone but them. It didn’t seem to matter how obviously dishonest it was or how deep its austerity cuts were, they still voted for it and its stoopid Brexit because they allow themselves to be whipped up by the press, its fears and flagshagging.

Now the Country is broke many of the same idiots would prefer Farage. Until they learn not to trust flag-waving robbers there will always be consequences, as there have been for those on benefits or the disabled over the last while. Where was the solidarity when thousands of disabled people were driven into despair?

 

Would it have been a better choice to have signalled that in the budget the Winter Fuel Allowance will be subject to income tax for all those not on pension credit? With a review to look at phasing out the WFA, as part of the triple lock commitment to increase the value of state pension payments.

The poorest pensioners would be exempt if they were entitled to Pension credit. It still means those just over the threshold would pay £60 out of the £300. But after all we are all in it together to sort out the nations finances.

 

See my post on 16/9, it's sort of what I suggested.

 

Happy to have a biting winter and no coal for the fire to see a good % of them finally shuffle off this mortal coil.

 

I think this is the important part - not leaving anyone behind

The system needs to be changed, but only do that when they have a robust system in place. Change it next year and they will still be making a saving over 4 years and probably beyond.

For context, the WFA payment would be 1/11th of 1% of the national budget
Of which the government would get around 15% back through taxation, reducing it to 1/9th of 1%
In the scheme of it its peanuts and ultimately part of a budget, that's a flexible and dynamic figure.

 

Absolutely. They wanted to rush something out. Ultimately what they've rushed out saves the square root of bugger all and servered them up a dollop of criticism.
Since then we've seen leaks left right and centre about what may be in the budget and they've pretty much all been poo pooed by the public/analyists and retracted. They tied their hands with their pre-election promises and I've got a feeling they're shitting themselves over how to find money without going back on those now.

It'll be savings, pensions and council tax which is about all they've got left and they'll all be deeply unpopular and unfair. I think they've screwed themselves over.

 

This is probably dumb of me but - isn't council tax set by, and payable to, local government?

 

The broad regime is set by central government - the Tories introduced caps on how much council tax can rise by (without a local referendum) and reformed things like what discounts exist and for whom. Plus all the laws around enforcement etc are in primary legislation.

 

Right, but does central government have any capacity to benefit from council tax rises?