Older people are facing a grim winter after the Winter Fuel Payment was cut. Credit: canva
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Carole won’t be celebrating Christmas this year.
“It’s just a question of cutting back where you can, isn’t it,” the 86 year-old says. “You have to be careful with what you buy. So Christmas is out, as far as I’m concerned… I won’t be sending cards, or presents, I don’t think.”
The Bournemouth pensioner lives alone in social housing. Her monthly rent eats up most of her limited pension income, and after paying her surging electricity bills, she doesn’t have much left over. Nonetheless, she was “getting by” – until the government scrapped the universal winter fuel allowance.
Carole is one of the 10 million pensioners who are no longer eligible for the annual payment, previously worth around £300. Some 83% of people over the age of 80 will not receive the winter fuel payment this winter, including 71% of pensioners with a disability.
“I just feel gutted,” Carole, whose two retired sons live abroad, says. “It’s the most difficult thing at the most vulnerable age. They should be looking after us old people. I do think they are penalising us.”
The government’s decision – which rations the payment to older people receiving pension credit or other means-tested benefits – will swell the number of pensioners living in poverty.
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According to the DWP’s own modelling, limiting winter fuel payment eligibility will push 100,000 more pensioners into absolute poverty by the end of the decade.
This tally – though grim – fails to depict the full scale of the impact. As many as 2.5 million pensioners will be hit by the cut, Age UK has estimated, including people on low incomes who just miss out on pension credit, people who don’t claim pension credit despite being eligible, and those with high energy needs because of disability or illness.
Carole – who is wheelchair-bound – stays warm by fastidiously rationing her heating in a single room. It feels more austere than “the war years”, she says.
“It’s pretty cold today, and so I’ve got a blanket on my legs, and I’ve got a sweater on,” she tells Big Issue. We speak amid the first cold snap of winter and as much of the country is blanketed in snow.
“I turned the heat on first thing this morning to take the chill off the room. I’ve turned it down now because I’m in my blanket. But I don’t know what’s going to happen if it gets worse. I mean, this is November. What about December? What about January? February? It scares me.”
Around 43% of older people who have lost the payment will go to bed earlier to avoid heating their home, polling from Independent Age has found. Some 67% said they will turn the heating on less than they would like and 23% said they would not turn the heating on at all.
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Since the announcement, calls to Independent Age’s helpline about pension credit and winter fuel payment worries have more than trebled. The charity has partnered with GoFundMe to raise money for the vital service.
Jules, 73, feels the government are being “cruel” to pensioners. Image: Supplied
Like Carole, 73 year-old Jules – based in Aberdeenshire – lives alone. The winter fuel payment was a “great help”, she says: “It felt like it was something that was given back, after a lifetime of working.”
The mum-of-three has been employed since she was 14, including several years as an NHS nurse. But she can’t afford to retire – so she “makes a few extra pennies” as a carer and dog sitter.
“I think I’ve got to give myself a couple of years [of working],” she said. “I know that things will be difficult for me, and that’s why drawing on my pension now is a very rainy day thing. I feel fit for my age, but none of us can guarantee when we will no longer be well enough to go out there and earn… it does worry me.”
The government insists that means-testing winter fuel payments will help to plug the “£22bn black hole” inherited from the previous government. Liz Kendall, secretary for work and pensions, has cited the “dire state of the public finances” as justification.
But charities have urged the government to scrap the “cruel” policy limit.
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“Cutting the winter fuel payment this winter, with virtually no notice and no compensatory measures to protect poor and vulnerable pensioners, is the wrong policy decision,” an Age UK spokesperson said.
Jonathan Bean, parliament and policy lead at Fuel Poverty Action, described the cut as “a political choice that will cause huge suffering”.
“Taking away the winter heating lifeline means millions will turn off their heating and try to survive huddled under blankets,” he told the Big Issue. “If it’s really cold, many will end up in hospital.”
The means-testing threshold is too low, says Jules, whose small NHS pension puts her just over the limit.
“There is this assumption that if you are not on pension credit, you are not needy,” she explains. “Bear in mind, you can be £1 over [the threshold] and find it difficult to get pension credit. I’m £11 over per week.”
Indeed, many people within the eligibility limit aren’t claiming. According to the government’s own research, a staggering 880,000 entitled pensioners are not signed up to pension credit.
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Having previously managed on her pension, Carole will now apply for benefits.
“You know, I’m proud, and I don’t want to ask people for money,” she said. “But now that my rent has gone up, I’m going to have to.”
Applications, however, aren’t always easy: last month Big Issue revealed that the average pension time it takes to process applications for pension credit lengthened from 25 working days in the week ending on 25 September, to 52 working days in the week ending on 21 October.”
Both Jules and Carole are almost embarrassed to be asking for help: Jules worries that she “is coming off as grumbling”, while Carole can’t stop thinking about people sleeping rough.
“At least I have a roof over my head,” the 86-year-old says. “What do they do in cold like this? It’s terrible.”
But like millions of other pensioners, both women face a much more difficult winter now that their fuel payment has been cut.
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It’s a feeling, Jules says, that she doubts Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves can imagine.
“I would say to them, come and live our lives. It’s on a different level. Be in the world of people less fortunate for a moment. I would like to see what it means to them.”
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