Winter Fuel payment

[syd]

Hey,

Ellie Reeves voted for the cut. It seems constituents are secondary to the party ideology and people will die or spend winter in fear of being warm.

It didn’t take long for the honeymoon to end!

[stuart]

I'm in a tangle over this.

Pensioners have had a good run since the triple lock cut in. Much better than the majority of the population and especially the poor whose other benefits were not triple locked.

One good thing coming out of this is getting more who qualify for pension bensfit onto pension bdnefit. So they still get WFA and more cash too.That means thsy get a warmer winter than otherwise. So its not all losers.

Cliff edge benefits are a horror but that iisn't instantly sortable and there are few ways of trying to fill the £22 billion hole this tax year.

Yes I would rather they had moved the burden upwards. But that is going to be a long hard haul. This wfa change is no excuse, indeed a reason to double down on it.

[alywin]

Difficult. Do I think the bar has been set too high? Yes. But is there anywhere else it could reasonably be set? What would happen if there was a two-tier system, with a lower amount for those pensioners not on pension credit? Obviously it wouldn't cut costs so much. But I think last year's WFP pretty much covered this (poorly insulated) 3-bed household's heating costs for the entire winter, which is actually in excess of what it was intended to do. Although of course we do have the benefit of living down south. But this winter? Trees in Penge are already shedding their leaves big time - I don't know whether that's an indication of a hard winter to come ...

I read somewhere recently that something like 10% of pensioners are millionaires - whether that is based on their house prices rather than actual cash, I don't know, but if it isn't it seems ridiculous that they should be getting a WFP.

[angela53]

MPs are claiming "second home" heating allowances with many of them having claimed thousands of pounds, including Rachel Reeves. Total hypocrisy!

[Parker1970]

MPs are claiming "second home" heating allowances with many of them having claimed thousands of pounds, including Rachel Reeves. Total hypocrisy!

I'm in the same camp. Had they also taken away the heating allowance for second homes of MP's I would have found it a bit more acceptable.

[stuart]

Bit confused. That isn't WFA is it? You don't claim it and it can't apply to second homes because the benefit is person not property related.

Are you questioning whether allowances that should be allowed to those MPs who are compelled to pay for a second home so they can serve both their distant constituents and parliament?

Presumably Ellie doesn't qualify and I don't think we are talking about duck houses and keeping the stables warm. A whiff of whataboutism?

[syd]

I'm in a tangle over this.

Yes I would rather they had moved the burden upwards. But that is going to be a long hard haul.

A windfall tax on energy companies would have fixed this. Even Thatcher did one

The 1980s
In 1981 Thatcher’s then chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, accused high street banks of escaping the recession. He introduced a special budget levy that creamed off 2.5% of the banks’ non-interest-bearing current account deposits to generate about £400m in extra revenue – equivalent to around a fifth of their profits in those 12 months.

The following year, Treasury officials came to the same conclusion when oil prices soared, and imposed a special tax, raising £2.4bn. North Sea oil firms argued at the time that extra taxes would limit investment, but the industry flourished.

[syd]

MPs are claiming "second home" heating allowances with many of them having claimed thousands of pounds, including Rachel Reeves. Total hypocrisy!

I'm in the same camp. Had they also taken away the heating allowance for second homes of MP's I would have found it a bit more acceptable.

I’m grateful that I know I’d not sleep at night if I was responsible for people suffering and dying

[Just John]

Now you know what your vote does.