The announcement in the summer of the removal of the winter fuel payment for all pensioners was a surprise and dissapointment. It’s a topic that we feel strongly about and we have been campaiging for its reinstatement ever since.
However, recent updates now suggest that the removal of the payment to help reduce costs and plug the ‘black hole’ in public finances, may have backfired. Lastest figures (as discussed in this article) show that the increase in pension credit claims as well as an uptake in other benefits, are beginning to cancel out the savings gained by removing the payments.
When the cut was originally announced last July, the Treasury budgeted for an additional 95,000 people claiming pension credit in order to qualify for the winter fuel allowance, at a cost to the government of £370.5m. But analysis by Policy in Practice shows that, while there have been only 57,000 extra pension credit claims, the total cost to the Treasury of funding them along with paying for “passported benefits” that these new claimants now qualify for, such as council tax support and housing benefit, is likely to be £388m.
