A Labour minister has given an update on the Winter Fuel Payment row – and was accused of ‘pointing the finger’ at wealthy pensioners. Culture Secretary appeared on BBC Breakfast today and was asked about the decision to cut the heating help which has taken the £300 cash boost away from about 10 million state pensioners.
It is only being given to about 1 million OAPs on Pensions Credit – a threshold which has been criticised for being too low and excluding many poor elderly people who are on the breadline. BBC host Charlie Stayt asked: “Why did it fall so badly with people and have you got it fundamentally wrong?”
Ms Nandy said: “Well, actually, there are mixed views out in the public about the winter fuel allowance. I think most people will accept that the very wealthiest shouldn’t be in receipt of something that costs the country over billion pounds a year. I think most people would accept that the very wealthiest pensioners shouldn’t be in receipt of a free allowance.”
Charlie cut in and said: “Sorry you were pointing the finger at very wealthy pensioners.” Ms Nandy replied: I’m not pointing the finger at anyone.” Stayt said: “That is the phrase you used.”
Ms Nandy continued: “It’s not a decision that we relish or that we wanted to take. It’s a decision that we’ve made because we were elected on a very clear promise to fix the foundations of the economy. We’ve got a 22 billion pounds black hole and the winter fuel allowance was a universal benefit for pensioners.
“And that means that some of the wealthier pensioners were getting a winter fuel allowance. When you’ve got young families who are really struggling with heating bills and others, what we’re doing with the winter fuel allowance is targeting..”
Stayt cut in, asking: “What you’re suggesting is you had to take a broad brush approach. Do you accept that there will be people within that who are hit much harder? You focused a moment ago on wealthy pensioners. Why are you not focusing on those further down?”
Ms Nandy said: “absolutely are. That is the focus. So a very small proportion of the poorest pensioners are currently in receipt of pension credit, which would enormously help them with their incomes, particularly this winter. What we’ve done as a government is to have a huge drive to get the up take of pension credit for those who are eligible to the right levels.
“We’ve had over 100 per cent increase in the last month alone. Because of that work in the number of people applying for pension credit, we’ll back date that so if people apply now or they apply this winter. They’ve got until April next year and it will be back dated so they don’t have to worry about putting the heating on. Only a very small proportion of people who are eligible previously applied. The last government did absolutely nothing about that.”
The exchange sparked an angry response on X with TheCommunitySpace saying: “#BBCBreakfast AGAIN comments about “rich” pensioners & #WinterFuelPayment yet @lisanandy NOT questioned about pensioners who DON’T qualify for Pension Credit but with income LESS than minimum wage⁉THEY ARE NOT RICH, but are AGAIN forgotten‼ WHY⁉ r is that question too hard⁉”
Another said: ”Get those MPs who signed up to scrap the WFA and get them to fill these forms in for all those pensioners who they say can claim it and that’s see how easy that is.” Caz said: “Why didn’t you ask what about pensioners just over a the pension credit, they are the ones been clobbered.”
