It’s a little hard to understand those figures, but I struggle to see how the removal of the WFA in favour moving people to Pension Credits, is breaking even - unless it assumes that a hell of a lot of people who should be claiming credit currently aren’t, and would under a new regime.
The first, not the second.
That’s what the screenshot shows, that if everyone eligible for pension credit claims it, i.e. the 100% take-up mentioned at the end, then the extra spending on pension credit would wipe out the savings from the winter fuel payments means-testing.
So… The proposal is to take away WFP from people that absolutely shouldn’t get it through means testing and then trying to improve the Pension Credit uptake which may mean breaking even on the WFP savings?
That is exactly what I want from a government. Anything else is pushing the pension credit eligibility gap problem down the road for some future government to resolve: right out of the Tory playbook.
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The fiscal responsibility part of this is ensuring very limited public funds are not given to wealthy pensioners.
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Presumably the government would be looking to maximise take up of Pension Credit with or without means testing, therefore would it be better for that to be reflected in the figures so it should show current spend + full PC take up and contrast that with means testing spend + full PC take up?
Nail on the head.
Part of the problem here might be in perception. The word ‘pensioner’ makes people think of little old men and women shivering in draughty terraced houses. You should see the pensioners round where I live.
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I don’t disagree about the goals, but my main issue is that their entire approach to this has been a mess. They could have sold it in particular as a holistic plan to try to improve take-up of welfare programmes while means-testing government aid in general.
But they didn’t. Instead, they made a lot of noise about how it would help plug the fiscal hole left behind by the previous government. Not only is that pitch not being accepted by the population they’re trying to convince, it also is a very short-sighted view.
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Either way, that doesn’t fit the whole narrative about the fiscal hole that they keep trying to sell. That’s why I’m saying they’ve made a complete mess out of this.
Yes and no. I agree they have made a mess of it. But without that hole it could be argued that the government would have found the additional funds for the most vulnerable pensioners without saving money through means testing the winter fuel allowance so overall costs would increase by £1.4bn rather than stay the same overall.
i cant comment with any authority on the UK but the problem in Aus with all these energy bonus’ etc etc, is not that the end user gets a bit of relief, its that they shouldnt need it, way too much wastage of monopolised public money…
it truely is just a massive transfer of wealth from public to private…with the biggest insult being they give it to us first and act like its doing us a favour
Haven’t seen a mic drop like this since Seth Meyers at the Correspondents’ Dinner…
Donald Trump says he’s a friend of the blacks, but unless ‘the Blacks’ are a family of white people, I bet he’s mistaken.
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Knowing that the UK is run by the Tory press, Labour needed to play this perfectly to come out of it positively.
The thing is, DWP have been pushing to close the pension credit gap since 1st September.
I don’t recall when the Reeves announcement of the WFP first came out, but I doubt the pension credit push by DWP happened overnight and probably is weeks in the making. So unless Reeves got the question about WFP before she was ready to announce, Labour probably should have got ahead with the pension credit story first before announcing the changes to WFP.
They have been pushing to close the clap for at least several years. I think the WFP announcement just gives it better attention now.
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Ok. I thought it might have been a change proposed by Labour.
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It’s not beneath them, it’s above them.
That run down flat now costs more than the end goal used to
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What do you mean? Is the amount of the winter fuel allowance changing? I’m confused here.
One sitting Labour MP, Jon Trickett, voted for the Conservative motion opposing the cut.
A further five independent MPs also backed the Tories - John McDonnell, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne and Zarah Sultana.
A total of 53 Labour MPs didn’t vote in today’s motion - including Cabinet minister Hilary Benn and veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott.
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Gutless self preserving twats.
But not all politicians are the same 