‘LABOUR’S winter fuel savings to be wiped out by £4bn benefits bill” declared a headline in last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph, the implication being that this was bad news. The “benefits bill” referenced was the potential cost of up to 850,000 pensioners “rushing to claim Pension Credit” to qualify for Winter Fuel Payments.

It’s fascinating to see the newspaper attempt to condemn Labour for its “raid on pensioners” while simultaneously implying that those in greatest need of Winter Fuel Payments are an unacceptable drain on the public purse. Nowhere is this contradiction better displayed than with a pie chart headed: “£23bn goes unclaimed in benefits Britain”.

The newspaper seeks to challenge Rachel Reeves’s claim that drastically reducing the number of pensioners receiving the payment will result in “savings” of £1.4bn a year, when the total cost of an increase in benefit claims could be more than double that sum.

The suggestion is that she is robbing Peter to pay Paul, introducing redistribution by stealth, and this is something we should be exercised, even outraged, about. It doesn’t seem to matter to them if the Peter in question is fabulously wealthy while the Paul is scraping by, unable to heat more than one room or have a hot meal every day.

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The late Peter Stringfellow, who became fabulously wealthy running nightclubs, declared in 2010 that he wished to hand back 10 years’ worth of winter fuel allowance, telling the then work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith that “giving people of my standing this generous payment is totally unnecessary … while the country is facing such financial hardships.”

He would surely have been bemused by some of the headlines of the past few weeks, including the Telegraph’s assertion that “Starmer’s Britain is a worse nightmare than anyone imagined”, in part because of the move to means-test fuel payments for pensioners.

Certain sectors of the media, along with some charities and lobby groups, are keen to portray “pensioners” as a homogenous group in order to argue that they should all receive this particular benefit. The narrative is that pensioners are all in a financially precarious position, unable to increase their incomes while having to absorb higher costs, and at a higher risk of fuel poverty.

Fuel poverty is defined by the Scottish Government as a situation where more than 10% of net income is required to pay for reasonable fuel needs after housing costs have been deducted. Note that the definition makes no reference to wealth, which means that a person can be undeniably wealthy by one measure but “in poverty” by another.

The bizarre tone of the Telegraph’s reporting on this subject may reduce the likelihood that the surge in benefit claims about which it warns will actually happen. One comment posted below its report sums up why.

“There are many proud pensioners who do not claim any extra benefits because they do not want to be seen as scroungers,” wrote a reader.

“Those living on the state pension and not much else will really struggle this winter as Reeves’ Pensioner Euthanasia Project starts to bite ... and they cannot afford even to put the heating on.”

The suggestion here is that many old people would quite literally rather die than claim benefits, and therefore obliging them to ask for the help to which they are entitled is tantamount to killing them.

The reader added: “Please help protect any vulnerable pensioners you know from these cruel new WFA measures by checking out their eligibility for help” and to her credit provided a link to the benefits calculator at Turn2Us.org.uk.

Charities are very familiar with this way of thinking, citing it as a significant barrier to uptake of Pension Credit, which acts as a “passport” to many other benefits and savings. They encounter clients in dire straits who regard Pension Credit as a form of charity and therefore refuse to apply.

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Some might question why people in receipt of the state pension make any distinction between this and a “top-up” benefit. If it’s OK to accept a pension, why not a Pension Credit?

A 2015 petition sheds some light. Under the header “Stop UK Government and Departments from labeling ‘State Pension’ as benefits!”, the petitioner wrote: “I strongly object to the inference that I receive a ‘benefit’, when I paid into the system for well over 40 years!!”

Nearly 15,000 people signed, triggering a government response. The short answer was “no”, the UK Government would not stop.

(Image: Archant)

“No offence is intended by the use of this term,” it said, but it is clear – including from past exchanges of letters in this newspaper – that offence is nonetheless taken.

The implication of the petitioner’s howl of outrage is that pensioners are entitled to their state pensions while other benefit claimants are not; that they have “paid into the system” whereas other benefit claimants have not. It’s a toxic narrative, bolstered by the Telegraph’s repetition of phrases like “benefits Britain”, that undoubtedly contributes to serious unnecessary hardship.

Government spending decisions should not be guided by self-defeating attitudes. “Paying into the system” does not earn one the right to dictate policy language to avoid injury to one’s pride.

Those pensioners who are struggling but stubborn could save themselves a few hundred pounds each year if they stopped buying newspapers that insist anyone claiming benefits should feel ashamed.