UK Politics

3051 readers

83 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

tom@feddit.uk

GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk

flamingos@feddit.uk

Age UK responds to the Chancellor’s announcement to means test Winter Fuel Payment (www.ageuk.org.uk)

submitted 2 months ago by sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I didn’t notice it in the article - does anyone have detail as to why pensioners who are entitled to the pensioners credits aren’t receiving them?

A big reason for this disastrous outcome is that more than one in three pensioners entitled to Pension Credit, the qualifying benefit for WFP under this proposal, don’t receive it, a proportion that’s been roughly constant for many years

Absolutely not doubting the validity of this report and the potential impact. I am just not understanding why the people who are entitled to a benefit are not receiving it? If this credit then enables the recipients to get WFP, could AgeUK or some other agency assist these people with applying for it?

[–] kralk@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

Any benefit where you have to apply for it is going to have these issues. People either don't know about it, don't want to be seen as scroungers, are too disabled to apply...

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Probably a case of people not knowing they're entitled

[–] DJDarren@thelemmy.club 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Additionally, the previous governments made it really hard to apply for benefits, even if you’re entitled.

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

As a follow up, if we assumed everyone entitled did receive it, would that completely clear out the concerns AgeUK have raised? Or are there other problems?

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 5 points 2 months ago

It would definitely go a long way to helping. The problem is that, while a lot of Labour's policies have been "holistic" this has been rather rushed and all the necessary parts of the puzzle aren't in place.

To pull this off you'd need:

Far better uptake of Pension Credit - I may run a quick informal "class" in my local at the weekend (we've previously done things like screenshots and reaction emojis).
A New Green Deal focused on those receiving benefits, the elderly in energy inefficient housing and renters.

That would get address a lot of the concerns raised but would require medium to long term changes. Perhaps an appeals process could help sort out those who fall between various stools.