THE charity Christians Against Poverty has reported “deep concern” amongst pensioners who will lose the winter fuel allowance, after Parliament voted on Tuesday to limit it to pension-credit claimants.
Only one Labour MP, John Trickett, backed the Opposition motion, while 52 abstained. The Guardian reported a Downing Street source as saying that every one but 12 of the absent MPs had provided legitimate excuses — a claim that was reportedly disputed by some MPs. The motion was defeated by 120 votes.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the Leader of the Opposition, Rishi Sunak, challenged Sir Keir Starmer to release the Government’s impact assessment, and said that pensioners receiving as little as £13,000 a 12 months would not receive the allowance.
Sir Keir replied that a rise in pensions would outstrip the lack of payments, and suggested that it was the previous Government’s actions that had made the measure needed.
On Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson for CAP said: “Our local debt-centre teams at the moment are reporting real concerns for pensioners coming to them, who will lose their winter fuel allowance because they are only over the edge for payment.”
The current threshold for payments was “causing deep concern amongst our pensioner clients who’re already struggling to pay for his or her essentials, a few of whom could miss out on receiving the payment because they are only over the edge”.
One third of those entitled to pension credit weren’t claiming it, the CAP spokesperson said. He urged people to make use of the calculator tool on the charity’s website to envision whether there have been additional payments they may claim.
Last week, the ChurchWorks Commission, an ecumenical group of church representatives engaged in social motion, urged the Government to make it a priority to remove the two-child limit on state advantages. It, too, raised concerns about how the means-testing of the winter fuel payment would affect vulnerable people.
Sixteen members of the commission met Lord Khan, the newly appointed Minister for Faith, Communities and Resettlement. Lord Khan told the group that he desired to be a “strong ambassador for the ChurchWorks Commission” across all parts of presidency.
The group also met Sir Stephen Timms, a Minister within the Department for Work and Pensions, who said that the brand new Child Poverty Ministerial Taskforce had a “shared agenda on child poverty”.
