Letter: ‘Threshold for Winter Fuel Payments far too low’

They’ve diminished the variety of pensioners eligible for the funds from over 11 million to only 1.5 million – limiting eligibility to only these receiving Pension Credit and different related advantages.

Throughout all native authorities the typical fall in eligibility is 88 per cent, however Basingstoke and Deane and Take a look at Valley are significantly laborious hit with 92 per cent and 93.7 per cent respectively in comparison with the variety of pensioners who obtained the Winter Gas Cost in 2022/23.

This isn’t excellent news for pensioners.

READ MORE: Greater than 260,000 Hampshire pensioners won’t obtain winter gasoline funds

Many specialists have already criticised the coverage for limiting the funds to a a lot too slender group of pensioners.

Many low and center earnings households are not eligible, but as Martin Lewis has identified there are numerous deserving instances.

Moreover, an extra difficulty with Pension Credit is that solely 63 per cent of these eligible take them up.

In impact there’s a shortfall of over 800.000 pensioners that are eligible however not registered.

Native councils have a key function to play to make sure consciousness is elevated so these in want of assist will not be lacking out on each their Pension Credit, and now in flip Winter Gas Funds too.

The Labour Authorities has set the brink at which pensioners don’t qualify for Winter Gas Funds far too low.

Solely these receiving a pension of lower than £218.15 every week (or £332.95 every week for {couples}) are eligible for pension credit.

That is considerably decrease than the residing wage fee.

It’s tough to imagine that Labour wouldn’t have been conscious of the actual and biting influence such a drastic minimize within the Winter Gas Funds can have once they introduced that 9 in 10 pensioners could be frozen out. Labour on this case has ignored the idea of social justice.

Cllr Luigi Gregori

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson

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