JEFF PRESTRIDGE: The winter fuel payment axe is scandalous. Shame on the BBC for what it's said about it...
How utterly disgraceful of the BBC to help Labour defend its decision to strip the winter fuel payment from 10million pensioners, with its news broadcasts ‘revealing’ details from the Treasury of the inflation-busting state pension increases expected from April.
As I listened to the report on Radio 4’s Today programme while on my way to work last Thursday, my mood changed from happy to livid. The passenger sitting next to me on the Great Western Railway train bound for London Paddington shifted uncomfortably in his seat as I mumbled a couple of expletives under my breath (I apologised straight away).
BBC News chiefs should be thoroughly ashamed of allowing themselves to be cynically used by Labour as a political tool. But the truth is its coverage of the Government’s ruthless culling of the winter fuel payment for all bar those on pension credit (and a few other benefits) has hardly been challenging since Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the decision. Like Labour, the BBC shows little empathy for the elderly.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who announced the decision to strip the winter fuel payment from 10million pensioners
Jeff Prestridge with a petition on winter fuel payments to be presented to Ms Reeves
The breathless reporting of the expected increase in next year’s state pension was based on Treasury ‘internal working calculations’ that a BBC reporter had seen. I can’t imagine for one moment that these ‘calculations’ were dug out by clever journalism or mistakenly left on a train by a civil servant and passed to the BBC to be ‘seen’.
Of course not. Using sleight of hand, they were given to the BBC by someone within the Treasury in a bid to quell widespread anger over the curtailment of the winter fuel payment.
This anger is wholly justifiable given that analysis by former pensions minister Sir Steve Webb – in his role as a partner of consultancy group LCP – indicates that 84 per cent of pensioners living in poverty are set to lose their fuel payments, worth up to £300. The Treasury figures ‘seen’ by the BBC suggest those on the ‘new’ full state pension will get a £400-plus annual boost in the new tax year – a result of the triple lock that guarantees pensioners an annual increase based on the higher of inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent.
In other words, a 3.5 per cent increase which would more than offset the loss of winter fuel payment – though of course only half of pensioners on the new state pension get the full amount.
While the BBC says this will mean an annual state pension of around £12,000 for those receiving the new full state pension (as opposed to £11,502 this tax year), older retirees (pre-2016) will get a smaller boost of around £300. This will mean an annual pension from next April worth around £9,000, compared to £8,814 currently.
So, many over-80s who’ll lose their £300 winter fuel payment will be no better off next tax year than this year. Scandalous.
For the record, this two-tier state pension is horribly unfair, and with every passing year the gulf between the ‘new’ and basic payment widens. It’s an issue raised in my mailbag every week. As ever, Baroness Ros Altmann, a tireless champion of the elderly, hits the proverbial nail right on the head.
In the wake of the BBC’s connivance with the Treasury’s internal working calculations, she said: ‘The oldest pensioners are about to have £300 taken away from them without warning, money which they were expecting to receive this November.
‘That money could have helped them keep warm through the winter. The poorest and oldest will lose hundreds of pounds now – and promising them a few extra pounds a week next spring is cold comfort. Sadly, some will not survive through the coming months.’
Altmann believes ministers should take a step back, halt the changes and look again at how to tax or restrict the winter fuel payment – rather than simply whipping it away from many poverty-stricken pensioners.
A Commons vote on Reeves’ winter fuel payment reform is due this week. I dearly hope many Labour MPs ignore the BBC’s warped reporting and express the views of their constituents by voting against the changes.
... and a lyrical take on Labour ‘robbing’ OAPs
I am indebted to reader Arthur Gilbert for his lyrical take on Labour’s decision to axe the winter fuel payment.
A retired quantity surveyor from Billingham in County Durham, Arthur is a talented individual who regularly emails me with his view on key personal finance issues.
He also has a wonderful Facebook page called Gilbert’s, Have Bus Pass Will Travel, Travels, giving details of walks people can do near where he lives. I wish I had known about it two months ago when I spent a couple of days getting wet in Whitby – Arthur’s recommended walk along the old railway line would have been more fun than the slippy Cleveland Way.
Arthur said his lyrics should be sung to the signature tune of ITV’s The Adventures Of Robin Hood. The closing theme song, Robin Hood, was written by Carl Sigman and sung by Dick James.
I recall it well from watching the series – featuring Richard Greene, above – with my younger sister Joy back in the 1960s. I’ve edited Arthur’s lyrics (sorry, Arthur), and given you only a flavour of them, but there is no doubt he encapsulates the thoughts of many pensioners who feel they have been robbed by Labour.
Robbing Hood, Robbing Hood
Riding through the house
Robbing Hood, Robbing Hood
Winter fuel payment to douse
Loved by the bad, feared by the good
Robbing Hood, Robbing Hood, Robbing Hood
Labour took winter fuel payment from the needy,
Blaming Hunt for a
£22 billion black hole
While giving big pay awards
to unions, the greedy
And how they boasted: ‘We’re now in control’
Robbing Hood, Robbing Hood
Riding through the house…
