The paper says that the prime minister’s decision to restrict the payment to those earning £35,000 or less will see more than two million pensioners miss out on the allowance, worth up to £300. Of those, more than a quarter are disabled and will be forced to hand back the £300 payment through the tax system:
It comes despite the government’s U-turn on its original decision to strip winter fuel payments from millions more pensioners, with the cuts now restricted to those earning more than £35,000.
Critics said the threshold is too low, particularly for disabled pensioners who will be hit by the change.
Dennis Reed, of over-60s campaign group Silver Voices, told The Sunday Telegraph: “An annual income of £35,000 is not a king’s ransom under any circumstances – let alone for a disabled pensioner. This shows the crudeness of having a means-tested cut-off because it doesn’t take into account the individual circumstances.
“There are usually extra costs involved with having a disability. You might have to heat the house more than you otherwise would, or have to charge medical equipment such as electric wheelchairs, for example.”
It seems that the action taken by Ministers to rescue the situation has not proven to be enough, while the compromise they've come up with is a complete mess.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, a rich pensioner couple – where one partner has an income of £100,000, while the other has £30,000 – will still get money. By contrast, a couple where both partners have income of £36,000 will get nothing.
Th government's problems over this policy are not going to go away soon.
Th government's problems over this policy are not going to go away soon.
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