FROM THE OPPOSITION: First cold homes, now tax on loneliness

Following on from my previous assessment that the new Labour Government has not got off to a good start, it’s now been announced that they’re going to take away Winter Fuel Payments from pensioners and impose a Loneliness Tax on Council Tax payers living alone.

In his 1997 Pre-Budget Statement the new Chancelor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced that pensioners would receive a winter fuel allowance for the first time so that they could afford to adequately heat their homes over winter.

Now in 2024 at the dawn of another Labour Government, the new Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced that almost all pensioners will lose this Labour reform.

If you remember Gordon Brown’s announcement, chances are scrapping the winter fuel benefits might affect you.

If you don’t remember it, then perhaps you haven’t thought about old age yet, but this is something we should all be concerned about. This will affect everyone who reaches old age.

Only pensioners who qualify for pension credit will now receive the winter fuel allowance which is a payment of either £200 or £300 depending on your age.

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In Wokingham Borough there are 29,194 pensioners, only 1,417 of whom are in receipt of pension credit – that’s less than 5%.

It’s not just rich pensioners who will lose out.

If you are in receipt of the full state pension you will not qualify for pension credit which is only available to pensioners with an income of £11,343 or below, or a joint income of just over £17,000 (there are some small top ups if for example you are disabled).

This is by no means a large income.

NHS advice is that that people over 65 are more vulnerable to cold weather and should heat their homes to 18 degrees.

Age UK have expressed their concern saying, “it is the wrong policy choice” and “will potentially jeopardise the health as well as the finances of millions of older people this winter.”

This new Government has decided that it’s not only those who get the Winter Fuel Payment who will suffer.

Local Government Minister Angela Rayner has refused to confirm that the single occupancy discount for Council tax for those living alone will remain. This would mean widows and widowers, as well as other vulnerable people, are going to have to pay a Loneliness Tax.

Clearly someone living alone will use less council services than a couple or a family. Scrapping the discount would be unfair.

Labour’s justification for all this is the widely debunked claims of a ‘black hole’ in Government finances. Even were you to accept this nonsense reason, no reasonable person would believe that the answer is heaving the burden onto shivering pensioners and vulnerable people with no-one to talk to all day.

Some of the least well off in our society are now going to have to pay for the priorities Sir Keir Starmer has decided to focus in his first few months in office. Caving into pressure from unions who make massive donations to the Labour Party to hand overly-inflated pay rises to public sector workers, including a whopping 14% pay rise for train drivers over three years. Cancelling Conservative plans to reduce the size of the Civil Service back to pre-pandemic levels. Giving jobs in the Civil Service to Labour donors and staffers.

At the same time, Labour is threatening to cancel plans to build a new hospital to replace the Royal Berkshire Hospital, and has already said that the Government will cancel other infrastructure projects and scrap plans for a cap on social care charges.

Labour’s constant refrain since coming to power is that they have no choice. But governing is about making choices. Labour have chosen to put its preference for higher taxes over fairness.

Your local Conservatives will continue to campaign against these awful decisions. We urge other local political parties, including the Liberal Democrat administration of Wokingham Borough Council that’s propped up by Labour, to join our fight to overturn these policies.

Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives