THE new Labour Government has announced that 10 million pensioners across England and Wales will no longer be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments.

They have reduced the number of pensioners eligible for the payments from over 11 million to just 1.5 million – limiting eligibility to just those receiving Pension Credits and other similar benefits.

Across all local authorities the average fall in eligibility is 88 per cent, but Basingstoke and Deane and Test Valley are particularly hard hit with 92 per cent and 93.7 per cent respectively compared to the number of pensioners who received the Winter Fuel Payment in 2022/23.

This is not good news for pensioners.

READ MORE: More than 260,000 Hampshire pensioners will not receive winter fuel payments

Many experts have already criticised the policy for limiting the payments to a much too narrow group of pensioners.

Many low and middle income households are no longer eligible, yet as Martin Lewis has pointed out there are many deserving cases.

Furthermore, a further issue with Pension Credits is that only 63 per cent of those eligible take them up.

In effect there is a shortfall of over 800.000 pensioners which are eligible but not registered.

Local councils have a key role to play to ensure awareness is increased so those in need of support are not missing out on both their Pension Credits, and now in turn Winter Fuel Payments too.

The Labour Government has set the threshold at which pensioners do not qualify for Winter Fuel Payments far too low.

Only those receiving a pension of less than £218.15 a week (or £332.95 a week for couples) are eligible for pension credits.

This is significantly lower than the living wage rate.

It is difficult to believe that Labour would not have been aware of the real and biting impact such a drastic cut in the Winter Fuel Payments will have when they announced that nine in 10 pensioners would be frozen out. Labour in this case has ignored the concept of social justice.

Cllr Luigi Gregori

Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson

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