Everyone should have a warm, safe place to call home – but heating a Surrey Hills mansion isn’t cheap. The drawing room alone takes an age to warm. Then there’s the Aga. And the sauna. So snatching £200-300 from the trembling hands of pensioners might be a bit cold. Now the all-inclusive cruise might have to wait until the spring.
Newsflash: The Winter Fuel Payment cut is being reversed! Well, in part at least. But a blanket payment to all the elderly shouldn’t have even been an option. Of course, some people need, and definitely should be given the money to warm their homes, but it’s not just pensioners shivering under their covers. In fact, chances are it’s not.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows the average household wealth was 33 times higher with someone aged 65 to 74 heading it compared to the 16 to 24 age group. In fairness, there is a slight decline once you hit 75, but when the median household wealth tops half a million in the 65 to 74 age range, a couple of hundred quid is hardly going to send most pensioners into financial freefall.
This cut changed James and Margaret O’Connor’s views on politics in an unexpected way. Both in their eighties, after selling their four bedroom home in Essex, they now live with their daughter, Sarah, in Sutton, London. They are not currently eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. James says: “The politicians know we are most likely to go out and vote. At first I was frustrated with the government for cutting the payment, but now I don’t miss it. If anything it opened my eyes to how unfair it was in the first place. We always felt very fortunate to be given the payment, even though we didn’t actually need it. It was a nice bonus to have, and no one likes to feel like something is being taken away from them, especially money. But once we realised it was a benefit that we were not relying on, it felt like more of a political tactic to sway our age group to vote a certain way rather than actually alleviate some of the problems we have here in Britain.”
Introduced in 1997, this automatic handout was reduced to those receiving qualifying, means-tested benefits last winter. The uproar from those that could probably spend the winter in their second – or third – holiday home would make you think they were reliving the Winter of Discontent. And what’s worse, those living in most European countries could, and still can if they qualify, actually claim this payment to heat a home they’re not even using. It’s probably being rented to a work shy millennial to be fair. And as this older age group keeps reminding us, sharing is caring.
It’s safe to say that taking this payment away from 9.3 million people went down like a cup of cold sick. Not even an Aga could warm that one up. Even Martin Lewis, patron saint of financial sanity, wasn’t massively impressed. “Many pensioners eke out the £100 to £300 Winter Fuel Payments to allow them to keep some heating on through the cold months,” he says. “While there’s an argument for ending its universality due to tight national finances, it’s being squeezed to too narrow a group.”
And he’s not wrong. The Department for Work and Pensions estimated that in 2022-23, up to 760,000 households were not claiming the means-tested benefits they are entitled to, meaning they will now miss out on the Winter Fuel Payment too.
I don’t hate actually hate your gran – depriving people in need is wrong. Martin Lewis says: “The Government has a huge moral imperative to ensure the people eligible for Pension Credit who don’t get it are informed, educated and helped through the process. It is planning an awareness-raising campaign, but it needs to ensure that it reaches every corner.”
So when Starmer eventually gives more clarity on this partial reversal, the public purse shouldn’t be emptied to fund another pensioner’s Range Rover. Even Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said millionaires shouldn’t get this payment again. Lib Dem leader and Surrey loyalist Ed Davey backs a full reversal though, predictably. “We are very lucky to not depend on this, and we have a lot of family support around us so that definitely helps,” says Margaret. “We know some people who could definitely use this payment and have had it taken from them, so I don’t agree with that at all. I’m glad the Prime Minister has said he is reconsidering the payment, because I do think the current boundary is too harsh. But I am not expecting us to receive it again, nor do I think we should.”
Of course it’s tragic that pensioners, or anyone for that matter, might be forced to choose between heating or eating. That’s hardly breaking news. But the idea of the p*iss poor pensioner doesn’t match the reality. With the cost of living hitting everyone, funding should be driven by need, not nostalgia.
