Government slammed for blaming ‘wealthy pensioners’ for grim winter gasoline cuts

A Labour frontbencher has been accused of “pointing the finger” at wealthy pensioners in the ongoing dispute over winter fuel payment cuts.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was on BBC Breakfast today, discussing the contentious decision to withdraw the £300 cash boost from approximately 10 million state pensioners. From now on, only one million Pension Credit recipients will receive it, a move critics argue leaves too many impoverished elderly people out in the cold.

BBC presenter Charlie Stayt asked: “Why did it fall so badly with people and have you got it fundamentally wrong? ” Ms Nandy responded: “Well, actually, there are mixed views out in the public about the winter fuel allowance. I think most people will accept that the very wealthiest shouldn’t be in receipt of something that costs the country over £1billion a year. I think most people would accept that the very wealthiest pensioners shouldn’t be in receipt of a free allowance.”

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Stayt interjected: “Sorry, you were pointing the finger at very wealthy pensioners.” To which Ms Nandy retorted: “I’m not pointing the finger at anyone.”, reports the Express.

Stayt countered: “That is the phrase you used.” Ms Nandy elaborated: “It’s not a decision that we relish or that we wanted to take. It’s a decision that we’ve made because we were elected on a very clear promise to fix the foundations of the economy. We’ve got a £22billion black hole and the winter fuel allowance was a universal benefit for pensioners.”

“And that means that some of the wealthier pensioners were getting a winter fuel allowance. When you’ve got young families who are really struggling with heating bills and others, what we’re doing with the winter fuel allowance is targeting.”

Interrupting, Stayt questioned: “What you’re suggesting is you had to take a broad-brush approach. Do you accept that there will be people within that who are hit much harder? You focused a moment ago on wealthy pensioners. Why are you not focusing on those further down? “.

Responding, Ms Nandy clarified: “We absolutely are. That is the focus. So a very small proportion of the poorest pensioners are currently in receipt of pension credit, which would enormously help them with their incomes, particularly this winter. What we’ve done as a government is to have a huge drive to get the up take of pension credit for those who are eligible to the right levels.”

“We’ve had over 100% increase in the last month alone. Because of that work in the number of people applying for pension credit, we’ll back date that so if people apply now or they apply this winter. They’ve got until April next year and it will be back dated so they don’t have to worry about putting the heating on. Only a very small proportion of people who are eligible previously applied. The last government did absolutely nothing about that.”

The conversation sparked a fiery backlash on X, with TheCommunitySpace posting: “#BBCBreakfast AGAIN comments about “rich” pensioners and #WinterFuelPayment yet @lisanandy NOT questioned about pensioners who DON’T qualify for Pension Credit but with income LESS than minimum wage!?THEY ARE NOT RICH, but are AGAIN forgotten!! WHY!? r is that question too hard!?”.

Another user commented: “Get those MPs who signed up to scrap the WFA and get them to fill these forms in for all those pensioners who they say can claim it and that’s see how easy that is.”

Caz chimed in: “Why didn’t you ask what about pensioners just over a the pension credit, they are the ones been clobbered.”

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