The director of campaigning group Silver Voices has warned that removing the winter fuel payment from many pensioners will increase excess deaths.
Dennis Reed added he did not believe the allowance needed to be cut to stop the economy 'tanking'.
Speaking on GB News Dennis Reed said: “There should be a Parliamentary vote on [changes to the winter fuel allowance]. It will be a travesty if this goes through by regulation without any parliamentary debate on it at all.
“It wasn’t in the Labour manifesto. There was no mention of it at all during the general election campaign, and yet, they must have planned this well in advance.
“Once they got the Treasury before the election, they must have known in advance what they were going to do. You don't suddenly dream something like this up, a major policy issue like this.
“You don't dream it up in the first two weeks of a new Parliament.
“So yes, the wool was pulled over our eyes as far as this was concerned. We are where we are, and it does need to be a parliamentary debate. There is a lot of public concern about this. Whatever you think, there's a lot of concern about it from MPs across all parties, quite rightly.
“And certainly pensioners themselves are extremely angry that they're being the ones who are being set up as the fall guys, if you like, for the economy.
“Basically, Labour seem to be saying, unless we did this, we removed this payment from 10 million, the economy would have tanked, which is complete rubbish, everybody knows that.
“I’ve seen lots of quotes from Age UK, really strongly objecting to these proposals, and it's nonsense about cosseted older people over the last 10 years. We were simply righting the wrongs of poverty with the triple lock. And in fact, a universal benefit was withdrawn by the last Tory government, which was the TV licences.
“Now this argument about wealthy pensioners, there's two points on this. Firstly, we are not talking about wealthy pensioners when we talk about the 2 million people just above the pension credit limit who are going to lose their whole winter fuel allowance.
“Those people are on just over £218 per week. That's why this policy is so cruel, and it will send so many people into fuel poverty this winter, and will increase excess deaths as well.
“Now, if they do want to do something about the very, very wealthy pensioners, then they need to bring in a cut off point which targets them, not 10 million people who could not afford to lose that winter fuel allowance.
“For example, they could bring in a limit at the level of the higher rate of tax. That would really show that they are targeting the very wealthy pensioners.
“There's always excess deaths due to cold, and there'll be more this winter, there's no question about that.
“The problem with means testing on these things is, first of all, there's large admin costs. Secondly, there's a huge cliff edge. So wherever the cutoff point is, there is a cliff edge.
“And thirdly, a lot of older people don't want to claim benefits, which is why they have a universal payment, but they don't claim pension credit.”
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Dennis Reed added he did not believe the allowance needed to be cut to stop the economy 'tanking'.
Speaking on GB News Dennis Reed said: “There should be a Parliamentary vote on [changes to the winter fuel allowance]. It will be a travesty if this goes through by regulation without any parliamentary debate on it at all.
“It wasn’t in the Labour manifesto. There was no mention of it at all during the general election campaign, and yet, they must have planned this well in advance.
“Once they got the Treasury before the election, they must have known in advance what they were going to do. You don't suddenly dream something like this up, a major policy issue like this.
“You don't dream it up in the first two weeks of a new Parliament.
“So yes, the wool was pulled over our eyes as far as this was concerned. We are where we are, and it does need to be a parliamentary debate. There is a lot of public concern about this. Whatever you think, there's a lot of concern about it from MPs across all parties, quite rightly.
“And certainly pensioners themselves are extremely angry that they're being the ones who are being set up as the fall guys, if you like, for the economy.
“Basically, Labour seem to be saying, unless we did this, we removed this payment from 10 million, the economy would have tanked, which is complete rubbish, everybody knows that.
“I’ve seen lots of quotes from Age UK, really strongly objecting to these proposals, and it's nonsense about cosseted older people over the last 10 years. We were simply righting the wrongs of poverty with the triple lock. And in fact, a universal benefit was withdrawn by the last Tory government, which was the TV licences.
“Now this argument about wealthy pensioners, there's two points on this. Firstly, we are not talking about wealthy pensioners when we talk about the 2 million people just above the pension credit limit who are going to lose their whole winter fuel allowance.
“Those people are on just over £218 per week. That's why this policy is so cruel, and it will send so many people into fuel poverty this winter, and will increase excess deaths as well.
“Now, if they do want to do something about the very, very wealthy pensioners, then they need to bring in a cut off point which targets them, not 10 million people who could not afford to lose that winter fuel allowance.
“For example, they could bring in a limit at the level of the higher rate of tax. That would really show that they are targeting the very wealthy pensioners.
“There's always excess deaths due to cold, and there'll be more this winter, there's no question about that.
“The problem with means testing on these things is, first of all, there's large admin costs. Secondly, there's a huge cliff edge. So wherever the cutoff point is, there is a cliff edge.
“And thirdly, a lot of older people don't want to claim benefits, which is why they have a universal payment, but they don't claim pension credit.”
WATCH ABOVE.
Find Out More...
