Preston Cox, 70, is worried about fuel debt this winter. After checking his entitlement to benefits, he learned that he is among the 9.9 million pensioners who no longer qualify for the winter fuel payment after the government announced it was restricting it in England and Wales.
Campaigners have warned that this figure includes up to 2 million struggling older people who could lose out on up to £300 a year after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, limited the payment to only the poorest pensioners.
Under the new rules, being in receipt of pension credit is the main benefit that will qualify older people. However, about 800,000 pensioners who are eligible do not receive it, Age UK said, while a similar number have weekly incomes that are less than £50 a week above the poverty line.
“We’re both on full state pensions so we’re above the threshold for pension credit,” said Cox, referring to the weekly £332.95 limit for couples. He and his wife, Rosemary, are housing association tenants and receive council tax relief and housing benefit. “If it’s a cold, long winter, we’ll go into debt.”
Rosemary Cox, 70, receives personal independence payment (Pip) for arthritis and fibromyalgia. “She can’t move around, so she feels the cold a lot more,” her husband, a retired HGV driver and former agricultural worker in West Sussex, said. “I got her an electric robe that doesn’t use as much electricity. It keeps her warmer, but she still suffers with the cold.”
Cox told the Guardian he was not against the tightening of the universal payment but thought the criteria were too narrow. “The threshold should have been higher, to include more people on means-tested benefits,” he said. “A lot of people get it who don’t need it – but we did use it for what it was for. This year, either we’ll turn down the thermostat more, or run into debt.”
Tessa, 71, will also not receive the payment from this year as she receives a full state pension and a small NHS one. “I had already begun to work out my budget for the winter and had factored [it] in, so was deeply shocked to find out I was no longer eligible. I am now dreading winter and looking at what I can sell. I’ll probably cut back on putting the heating on. When you’re older, there’s not as many places you can cut back and I can’t increase my income either. I can’t stand being cold – it makes me feel ill now.”
Tessa, who worked for NHS mental health services, retired shortly before the cost of living crisis began to bite. “When I first retired, I was OK – now I’m skint and can’t afford to go out,” Tessa, a homeowner in the East Midlands, said. “I was a single mum under Thatcher and I used to go hungry to feed my child. There were things, like going on a small holiday, that I wanted to do, that I now can’t. I feel crushed by the constant rise in the cost of everything.”
The 71-year-old said she was “horrified” by the chancellor’s decision. “I know Labour’s inherited a grotesque mess, but I can’t go and get another job. I’m tired – I’ve worked since I was 15, I’ve contributed a lot. I’m a lifelong Labour voter, but they’ve lost my vote.”
She added she was “profoundly shocked” that the government thought £218.15 a week – the earnings threshold at which single pensioners become ineligible for pension credit – was enough to live on without support in paying heating bills. “There’s this fallacy that pensioners all live in five-bed houses and go on cruises whenever it gets cold,” she said. “We’re not a homogeneous group.”
With the change coming just months before winter, there is concern that many are not aware of the benefits to which they are entitled. Outside his home in the seaside town of Jaywick in Essex, a short walk from the beachfront, one pensioner who asked not to be named said he was unsure whether the change would affect him. “I think I do get pension credit but I don’t know. You could get a letter tomorrow saying they’re stopping it for whatever reason, so you just don’t know where you are or where you’ll be,” he said.
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In a town such as Jaywick, which is one of England’s most deprived areas and has an ageing population with almost a quarter of residents over 65, there is likely to be a higher proportion missing out.
But many better-off pensioners were relieved that they and others like them would no longer receive the payments. Frances Mason, 69, a retired headteacher in Dorset, welcomed the change: “I always thought it was wrong that those as comfortable as us get it. My only concern is those who are just above the threshold – I’m hoping the government will sort it out as it would be wrong to deny them something they need.”
Mason and her husband receive occupational pensions and full state pensions, and said they always give theirs away to charity: “It would be wrong to keep it when we didn’t need it.”
Ric, 72, a retired teacher in South Yorkshire, said he and his husband were slightly above the threshold to receive pension credit because of their savings. “We’re not eligible, but only just, and that’s because we set aside money to save for future health care. It’s our only insurance against potential crippling costs if one of us needs assisted living.”
“We know things can change rapidly. The cash you have in the bank is regarded [by the government] as money you could just splash, and in many cases, it’s not.”
Ric receives a partial state pension, and a small private pension, on which he has recently begun paying tax because of fiscal drag. “A problem with thresholds, and not just for winter fuel payments, is that you only need to go marginally above and you lose whole acres of allowances,” he said. “If means-testing could be as a sliding scale, that would be fine. But those just managing are lumped together with pensioners who may be very well off.”