delboy54 Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 5 hours ago, Genie said: The poorest pensioners still get their pension, pension credit and the fuel allowance so I assume they are unaffected by this. Apparently to apply online for pension credit you have to respond to 200 questions....seems designed deliberately to put anyone off from applying ! The on line questionnaire was designed by the Tories when they were in power, common sense would have thought that Labour would have simplified this to counteract the bad press they are getting. But it does appear from experts in the financial world that if everyone applied for the pension credit it would cost more than the removal of the heating allowance... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danwichmann Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 6 minutes ago, delboy54 said: Apparently to apply online for pension credit you have to respond to 200 questions....seems designed deliberately to put anyone off from applying ! The on line questionnaire was designed by the Tories when they were in power, common sense would have thought that Labour would have simplified this to counteract the bad press they are getting. But it does appear from experts in the financial world that if everyone applied for the pension credit it would cost more than the removal of the heating allowance... Does that matter? It's still more money in the pockets of people who actually need it, rather than a lot of it ending up with those who don't? More poor pensioners ending up with both pension credit and allowance seems like a good thing to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 4 hours ago, foreveryoung said: Only 'if', they are claiming pension credit. Which apparently 800k are not. A big percentage of that is probably because they have no idea how to. We know how difficult it can be to claim for these benefits with the paperwork involved. You can do it online very easily but many pensioners don't like doing stuff online.. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 9 minutes ago, delboy54 said: Apparently to apply online for pension credit you have to respond to 200 questions....seems designed deliberately to put anyone off from applying ! 233, though dozens and dozens of them will not be required from a usual applicant - if you don't need to also claim benefits for a child, for example, that's 76 questions gone immediately. Another 40 questions gone if you or your partner have not recently returned from overseas Still looks like a right ball ache though: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6582f7c4ed3c3400133bfc8f/pc1-interactive.pdf 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 6 minutes ago, Danwichmann said: Does that matter? It's still more money in the pockets of people who actually need it, rather than a lot of it ending up with those who don't? More poor pensioners ending up with both pension credit and allowance seems like a good thing to me. It matters in terms of the public finances as the plan was to save money doing it. If it saves nothing then money will need to be cut from another budget. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 (edited) 17 minutes ago, delboy54 said: Apparently to apply online for pension credit you have to respond to 200 questions....seems designed deliberately to put anyone off from applying ! The on line questionnaire was designed by the Tories when they were in power, common sense would have thought that Labour would have simplified this to counteract the bad press they are getting. But it does appear from experts in the financial world that if everyone applied for the pension credit it would cost more than the removal of the heating allowance... I've seen the online application. Many of the questions can be skipped. It's not thst difficult. Not only that there's a pension credit new claim.phone line where they will help.them through it. Edited September 10 by PaulC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danwichmann Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 1 minute ago, Genie said: It matters in terms of the public finances as the plan was to save money doing it. If it saves nothing then money will need to be cut from another budget. Granted, maybe it wasn't the plan, but still seems like money stands to be distributed more fairly now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 (edited) Nothing to see here. No need for your legislators to understand what they're voting on, just trust Starmer and Reeves and do what you're told. They made the initial decision with no impact assessment, off the cuff, got some criticism, decided to do one, and now won't tell people what it says. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/winter-fuel-payment-starmer-reeves-b2609520.html Quote The government has assessed the number of people who will be pushed into fuel poverty by its winter fuel payment cuts, but will not publish the figures until after MPs vote on the measure, The Independent can reveal. Answering a parliamentary question from former Labour frontbencher John McDonnell, energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh confirmed her department has assessed the impact the policy change will have on pensioners living in fuel poverty. But, asked by Mr McDonnell and The Independent, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero refused to say when the document would be published, only promising that it would be “in due course”. And asked about the impact assessment for the policy, the spokesman said the government would not “give a running commentary on the advice ministers receive”. Edited September 10 by Davkaus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 They said they were only cutting the fuel allowance to prevent a run on the pound by international bastards. If the plan results in spending more money, or even just similar money, is the run on the pound back in play? (answer: it was a stupid lie to put out there, and only the sort of nerd that watches Newsnight would know about it, so no harm done) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 56 minutes ago, delboy54 said: But it does appear from experts in the financial world that if everyone applied for the pension credit it would cost more than the removal of the heating allowance... Regardless of whether it is claimed or not it is still budgeted for so if the 800k who are apparently entitled to it and haven't been claiming start now claiming for it then it won't cost any extra as it has already been accounted/budgeted for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 (edited) Starmer really needs go be pushed in that “run on the pound” claim as it sounds like utter bollocks. My feeling is that the comment was not specifically aimed at cutting the winter payment, he’ll possibly say they had to quickly share a plan for filling the financial black hole they say they inherited to avoid the markets losing confidence in the UK (like the Liz Truss mini budget). Edited September 10 by Genie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted September 10 Moderator Share Posted September 10 So has anyone mentioned Octopus Energy's announcement from yesterday, whereby they'll be giving pensioners just above the Govt Threshold discretionary discounts of £50 / £100 / £200 this winter? Sure its a bribe for more customers but I reckon others may follow to maintain their market share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 3 minutes ago, bickster said: So has anyone mentioned Octopus Energy's announcement from yesterday, whereby they'll be giving pensioners just above the Govt Threshold discretionary discounts of £50 / £100 / £200 this winter? Sure its a bribe for more customers but I reckon others may follow to maintain their market share They were giving out free electric blankets last winter too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 3 minutes ago, bickster said: So has anyone mentioned Octopus Energy's announcement from yesterday, whereby they'll be giving pensioners just above the Govt Threshold discretionary discounts of £50 / £100 / £200 this winter? Sure its a bribe for more customers but I reckon others may follow to maintain their market share First I've heard of it. Sounds good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 Liz Kendall making a good point about Labour doing more in the few months in charge to help all those entitled to pension credit to be made aware they csn claim it. There's also. The warn weather payment worth £150 this autumn plus the household support fund that people can claim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 6 minutes ago, PaulC said: Liz Kendall making a good point about Labour doing more in the few months in charge to help all those entitled to pension credit to be made aware they csn claim it. There's also. The warn weather payment worth £150 this autumn plus the household support fund that people can claim With the tory 'retort' that if this works, as @Danwichmann has been posting, the costs will be about the same, with more money going to those who need it more. It seems bizarre that this could have been sold as 'throw less money at the wealthy and give it to those who need it more' (with my caveats in previous posts), and instead Labour are sticking to the austerity lines, when it doesn't actually seem like it'll save a penny. At this point I half suspect that the only reason they're persevering is to look 'strong'. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinker Posted September 10 VT Supporter Share Posted September 10 (edited) If only this amount of scrutiny was given to the tories decisions maybe we wouldn't have a £20b black hole. Interesting to see that theres a £15b question mark on covid contracts that are suspected of being fraudulent. Has this made the front pages/news headlines? Edited September 10 by tinker 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mozzavfc Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 18 minutes ago, tinker said: If only this amount of scrutiny was given to the tories decisions maybe we wouldn't have a £20b black hole. Interesting to see that theres a £15b question mark on covid contracts that are suspected of being fraudulent. Has this made the front pages/news headlines? Was on BBC news yesterday https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cevj3y7n33vo Spoiler An anti-corruption charity says it has identified significant concerns in contracts worth over £15.3bn awarded by the Conservative government during the Covid pandemic, equivalent to one in every £3 spent 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 54 minutes ago, tinker said: If only this amount of scrutiny was given to the tories decisions maybe we wouldn't have a £20b black hole. Interesting to see that theres a £15b question mark on covid contracts that are suspected of being fraudulent. Has this made the front pages/news headlines? Yes criminal what the tories did there and cost many lives too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted September 10 Share Posted September 10 2 hours ago, Genie said: It matters in terms of the public finances as the plan was to save money doing it. If it saves nothing then money will need to be cut from another budget. With the government projected to spend over a thousand billion pounds on services in 2025 and only expecting to save £1.4bn by scrapping the winter fuel allowance, it does seem more like a gesture than something desperately needed to solve the country's debt problem. The question to ask is whether all the resultant drama is just manipulation to make the electorate think Labour are making serious cuts? Make cuts which provoke a huge response, seems like the best way to create the impression most useful to government, seems like the plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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