When the winter fuel allowance was introduced you received it at the age of 60.....I always thought that was stupid as I was still working and never believed that I or anyone else of that age who was working was entitled to it or deserved to get it as a right when there were/are/ much older people who are retired on a state pension that could do with the money to help them....now being retired 6 years I would not worry or miss it if they decide to stop it....why dont they raise the age of receiving it to around 80 years old as thats when we realy need to keep warm........Why is it that if you move abroad say to spain that you still get the winter fuel allowance,,the goverment say its because it is too difficult to stop it to those who live abroad...And yet if you receive the D.L.A. and then move abroad the goverment stop it without a problem 
..Have these morons that run our country ever tried to live on the state pension on its own,,,paying rent...utility bills and food bills..i bet they havent,,,because when i worked the 51 years that i did we were never offered a private pension to pay into,,and that depended on what job you worked at and if you could afford it...The pension payment system like a lot more payment systems (unemployment ) is way out of date and needs to be given a complete revamp,,because i dont care what anybody says about it,,,,,,there are thousands of vunerable pensioners out there (not all )that need that extra money and they not only deserve it but it is there right to receive it for the years they worked to help this country....And to say that the state pension is,,,,a,benefit,,,is a down right disgrace...it is a hard earned income that we all deserve and have a right to receive....
As an expat who lives in Spain I can't let that go without comment. I agree with the rest of what you say about vulnerable pensioners.
Firstly Spain is every bit as cold in winter as Britain. In 2005 we experienced long periods where the temp was below 7degrees C
minus at night. The coldest I saw on my Omega that winter was minus 10C at 11.a.m. but that night it was minus 14C.
Secondly very few houses here have decent insulation or heating systems for that matter. Central heating is very rare. Most people in our village still heat their homes with open fires. They are hardy folk who also cope with 40 plus summer temps somehow. We have a couple of decent log burners which work quite well and we are hardy too.
Thirdly as members of the UK population that have paid taxes(a lot) during our lives , why shouldn't we get the same benefits as say pensioners who choose to live in the UK? What difference does it make where you choose to see out your days? Sometimes I think the politics of envy are at play.
Fourthly , it is a poor state of affairs that a country has to give its pensioners handouts to keep alive after a lifetime of work. We have four sets of UK relatives who struggle every winter to keep warm enough. It is a fact that the UK state pension is the worst in Europe despite Britain being one of , if not the richest country in the EU.
Finally and most importantly , you are behind the times. The government already did some very clever average calculations for foreign countries where expats might live and by including hotter dependencies, a lot do not qualify for the winter fuel allowance. So should I manage to ever become a state pensioner I will never get that benefit.
It is heading towards winter, if you want you could come out and experience our lovely warm winters. I will show you where the logs are. Then you can report back to HMG that maybe they have got it wrong
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Topic: Now here's a nice chap..... (Read 5661 times)