Winter Fuel Payments scrapped

[Jamboal]

Yes, some residents of mountain villages still receive it, I believe if over 600m’s.

Is this not a cypriot grant rather then a UK one?

Yes it is a Cypriot grant but non Cypriots are receiving it.

[PolemIan]

This is the latest guidance. Cyprus is not on the list of included countries.

https://www.gov.uk/winter-fuel-payment/ ... 20the%20UK

I appreciate I’m probably going to get slaughtered for this but here goes anyway.

I was fortunate enough to be able to give up work at a relatively young age, somewhere between 45 and 50. Not surprisingly, here comes a sweeping statement, most of the people we tend to meet and chat to tend to be at the “more mature end of the age spectrum”. The change in eligibility for the U.K. WFS was not too long after we moved here.

The allowance is, sensibly in my opinion, residency based and at the time I was quite frankly stunned to hear that people who had mostly moved here, presumably because of the massively better climate and could afford to buy a home here, were ok about claiming a winter fuel allowance whilst wandering around in shorts in December - granted there are cooler areas to live and and many houses are not warm, but that felt very much like taking the mickey to me. Still does. Ok, if you’ve paid tax and NI that’s fine, but the tax and NI contributions are not a ‘savings pot’, they pretty much fund those receiving state benefits at the time and pretty much just earn entitlements to receive future benefits assuming you’re still eligible.

This is one, of many, reasons, why the whole state pension funding is in such a state, with an ageing population, though that’s levelled off a bit, there simply isn’t enough money coming in to fund the state pension hence the constant twiddling with ages when state pensions would be paid. This has been brewing for 30+ years and no government of any party has had the balls to address this, because, like the hot potato of NHS funding, currently £180 billion a year, which every government claims to increase whilst every opposition claims it’s being cut, it is not a vote winner.

We looked at the numbers before moving here and basically decided to assume we might never actually receive a state pension, never mind a winter fuel allowance which should be for those who need it, not those who can move to a place in the sun.


Ian

Out of curiosity, how do you think the issue should be addressed?

I agree with you with regards to pensions. We have always gone on the assumption that we won't get one when we hit the magic age in about 12 years time. I was quite perplexed with some of the rhetoric bandied about when the female pension age was raised to make it closer to the male one. Given that they live longer anyway it only seemed fair to me.

No idea Dominic, that’s what the pension industry and politicians need to solve. I doubt it will though as it seems to my limited understanding that the underfunding has been going on for too long and the big changes that might therefore be needed are almost certainly an instant vote loser for anyone brave enough to poke their heads above the parapets.

[PolemIan]

Polemian

No-one actually claimed WFA, if you qualified to receive it, by age, and by residence, it was automatically credited to your bank account.

You could always give it to charity, if you didn't need it.

Firefly, fair point, my Mum never mentioned if she’d filled in a form or automatically received it and it’s bit late to check now.

I’d love to see the figures from the charities showing how much they’d received from such kind hearted pensioners.

If it was / is always based on residence why were people getting so irked about the removal of a benefit when they were clearly resident outside the U.K. in a predominantly warm climate?

Ian

[clive of payia]

It's just socialism living up to is name, "Sharing the misery equally." Would have made better publicity if they had declared the Winter Fuel Payments scheme was ceased but additional payments to meet fuel bills paid to those really genuine deserving cases. If Milliband gets his way, many hundreds of millions of UK citizens will need financial help keeping warm in the near future when the UK has the means to be self-contained with fuel from coal, fracking and North Sea oil and gas. The WFA is just another step further by the Globalists to control people's lives unless the revolting far right start revolting peacefully at the ballot box.