Money expert Martin Lewis has blasted the ‘hole’ in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to axe the Winter Fuel Payment for millions of pensioners this winter.
The money man was talking to Ed Balls and Susanna Reid on ITV’s Good Morning Britain when he tore into the government on the decision to make the £300 Winter Fuel Payment means tested, and the impact it will have on ‘the poorest pensioners’.
Martin told them he has ‘yet to hear a good answer’ on how the government is going to reach the 800,000 state pensioners who are eligible for Pension Credit to claim the Winter Fuel Payment in turn but who have not done so for various reasons and called this the ‘hole’ in Labour’s argument.
Martin said: “Most people who are going to claim it are claiming it. What you have left are the low hanging fruit. You have some people who are scared of filling in the forms and find it too difficult, some people who are too proud to take it, and many people who are elderly and have issues like onset dementia which means they will never claim this payment.
“And that is a real problem, even if the government did a one on one exercise to everybody who doesn’t get the full state pension, even if it set up a three-digit phone number (because only government can set up three digit phone numbers like the 159 number you can use to contact the bank to be sure it isn’t a scam) to make it easier. I think if you got down to just 700,000 people not claiming it you’d be doing well.
“It is an incredibly difficult thing to do and I think this is the hole in the government’s argument. There are two problems over the Winter Fuel Payment going. One is means testing itself is too narrow, effectively saying if you earn less than £11,400 you’ll get the £300 payment.”
Martin explained that this winter, pensioners will either be £200 worse off or £500 worse off, because the cost of living payment of £300 paid last year is gone, and the £300 Winter Fuel Payment will also be missing for many, while energy bills are only £100 less than last year.
He added: “For those 700,000 or 800,000 pensioners who don’t get pension credit, it means by definition they have less than £11,400 a year income. Less than that. These are the poorest pensioners. It means that the government thinks that they should get winter fuel payment and they’re in such a dire state that they should get winter fuel payment, but they still won’t get it.
“The mechanisms the government are putting in place may help a few more claim, but there will still be huge numbers who aren’t claiming. And I haven’t yet heard a decent answer about what we’re going to do to help those people.”
