Silver Voices’ Dennis Reed warns that if Labour gets away with cutting Winter Fuel Allowance, they won’t stop their attack on pensioners there.
Dennis Reed warns Winter Fuel will just be the first attack on pensioners if Labour succeeds (Image: Getty / Andy Stenning)
The success of this campaign is vital for the way the new Government treats the needs of older people over the next five years. There is a strongly held view from our members that Labour is targeting pensioners as ‘low hanging fruit’ rather than taking on other more powerful vested interests. If the universal winter fuel payment goes the same way as the free TV licence, the next in line will be free prescriptions in England and the free bus pass. Then means-testing the state pension, or levying national insurance on our private pensions, will also be on the cards.
It is hypocritical for the Chancellor to suggest that she was forced to decide this policy by the financial situation and that she was reluctant to do it. Her job is all about political priorities and she chose to spend far more on meeting the demands of the public sector unions. She also chose not to take on the powerful banks, energy firms and internet giants making obscene profits. We think this attack on pensioners was a symbolic sop to those think tanks and special advisers who regard all older people as fair game for cuts.
If the winter fuel payment is scrapped for 10 million older people, it will create real hardship this winter and lives will be lost. The charities estimate that around 2 million will find it difficult to pay their energy bills. It is a specious argument that because a very few wealthy pensioners do not need the winter fuel payment, this vital protection must be removed from millions.
The winter fuel payment is not a perk, it reflects the fact that pensioners need to spend more on energy. Most are at home all day and all older people are less able to tolerate extremes of heat and cold. Cold and damp houses exacerbate respiratory conditions, and the incidence of heart attacks and strokes increases. Many of us need energy-hungry medical equipment or powered disability aids.
The last Government was haunted by long-running Silver Voices campaigns on free TV licences and the Triple Lock for the whole of the Parliament; does the Chancellor really want to stir up the ire of 10 million pensioners again, for a relatively small saving? On behalf of the vast majority of older people, I urge Rachel Reeves to think again and reverse this brutal policy.
